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OUTLINES 



DESCKIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



PROFESSOR LADD'S WORKS. 



OUTLINES OF DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY. A Text-Book 
of Mental Science for Colleges and Normal Schools. 8vo. 
$1.50 net. 

PSYCHOLOGY : DESCRIPTIVE AND EXPLANATORY. A 
Treatise of the Phenomena, Laws, and Development of 
Human Mental Life. 8vo. $4.50. 

OUTLINES OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. A Text- 
book of Mental Science for Academies and Colleges. Illus- 
trated. 8vo. $2.00. 

ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. A Treat- 
ise of the Activities and Nature of the Mind, from the Phys- 
ical and Experimental Point of View. With numerous 
illustrations. 8vo. $4.50. 

PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY. i 2 mo. $1.00 net. 

PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. An Essay in the Metaphysics of 
Psychology. 8vo. $3.00. 

PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE. An Inquiry into the 
Nature, Limits, and Validity of Human Cognitive Faculty. 
8vo. $4.00. 

INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. An Inquiry after a 
Rational System of Scientific Principles in their Relation to 
Ultimate Reality. 8vo. $3.00. 



OUTLINES 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



A TEXT-BOOK OF MENTAL SCIENCE 



COLLEGES AND NORMAL SCHOOLS 



GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD 

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN YALE UNIVERSITY 




NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1898 

TWO COPIES RECEIVED 



^ 



v^ 
V^ 



a?53 



COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



NortoooK Press 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith. 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



PREFACE 

This book lias been written with a definite intention 
constantly in view. In size, selection and arrangement of 
material, style, and mechanical structure, my effort has 
been to adapt it to certain beginners, with an average 
grade of culture and amount of time at disposal. In a 
word, it is — as its title designates — a text-booh of the 
science of psychology for colleges and normal schools. I 
have, therefore, had in mind, from first sentence to last, 
both the pupil and the teacher in their mutual relations. 
No pains has been spared to make the presentation of the 
subject such that it can be intelligently and " economi- 
cally " yet thoroughly studied and successfully taught. 

It will doubtless facilitate my general purpose if the 
explanation of it is extended into a few particulars. And 
first, attention is called to the fact that this work aims to 
give a complete but summary treatment of the phenomena 
of human mental life, from the different points of view, 
and with all the methods of research, which belong to 
modern psychology. The aid of experimental and physi- 
ological investigations is constantly sought. But these 
investigations are — at least at present — almost entirely 
unable to deal with the later and more complex develop- 
ments of the mind. Unless Ave describe, and as far as 



VI PREFACE 

possible explain, the growth of intellect, the knowledge of 
Self and of Things, the formation of the higher sentiments 
and emotions, and the conditions for the attainment of 
character, we neglect the main part of the task of the 
psychologist. Our picture of the mental life may have a 
scientific appearance, but it is not at all the faithful pic- 
ture of a developed human mind. In aiming at what is, 
perhaps, best called the " balancing " of the material, I 
have tried to give these " higher faculties," without neg- 
lecting the treatment of more fundamental processes, the 
amount of space they naturally deserve and require. 

The method which I have followed is both analytic and 
genetic. The First Part describes those elementary forms 
of functioning which analysis discovers as entering into 
all mental life. The Second Part traces the evolution of 
the principal " faculties " of mind, as much as possible in 
their combined and interdependent action. In both parts 
I have drawn upon all the different sources of the science, 
with grateful acknowledgment of help from workmen of 
various schools, but without handing in my allegiance, or 
dogmatically teaching to my readers, the opinions of any 
school. This attitude, as well as the text-book character 
of the work, explains many of its omissions. There are 
scarcely any footnotes, and comparatively few definite 
references of any kind; there are no extended quotations 
from other writers; the details of discussion and of argu- 
ment for the author's views are wanting here, and must 
be sought in his other works. At the same time care has 
been taken not to create the impression that the views of 
this book are beyond all need of comparison with other 



PREFACE Vll 

investigators. On the contrary, commendatory or critical 
reference to others has been freely introduced; and a very 
brief bibliography, which it is hoped will lead the student 
to wider reading, has been appended to each chapter. 

In the style of presenting the various subjects I have 
tried chiefly to secure clearness, conciseness, and order. 
These seem to me the more important qualities in such a 
text-book as this aims to be. But these qualities make it 
impossible to introduce lengthy stories or disquisitions 
aside, or other interesting illustrative material. The 
pupil, on his part, should begin the science, as he should 
begin every scientific study, with the determination to do 
honest and faithful work. This determination will soon 
secure a more intelligent and lasting interest in the sub- 
ject than can otherwise be gained by any devices of the 
author, however skilful. But the teacher on his part is 
left free to supplement the text-book from his own re- 
sources, and to stimulate the pupil to draw upon all his 
own experience for illustrative and life-giving details. 

A few words are also needed to place the present work 
in its proper relations to other works on the same subject 
by the same author. The " Elements of Physiological 
Psychology" and the "Outlines of Physiological Psychol- 
ogy " are not at all displaced by this book in the use of 
those who wish to study mental life with more detail, 
from the experimental and physiological points of view. 
Indeed, where there is time for this, reading of one of the 
physiological psychologies may be combined with the use 
of the present work. For younger pupils, or those who 
have less time, the " Primer of Psychology " will still be 



viil PREFACE 

preferred; while more advanced students, and beginners 
who have more leisure for reading than belongs to the 
college classroom, or who object to the definitely text- 
book form of presentation, will probably prefer the larger 
"Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory." 

I wish to make grateful acknowledgment of the help 
received from my colleagues, Professor George M. Duncan 
and Dr. Edward W. Scripture. Professor Duncan read 
all the manuscript and made many valuable suggestions 
toward adapting the book better for classroom use. 
Dr. Scripture has greatly assisted in preparing the dia- 
grams, — several of which are of his own devising, — 
and has carefully scrutinized the experimental material. 
Both of these gentlemen have read all the proofs. I feel 
that their experience as successful teachers, added to the 
experience of the author, may reasonably be relied upon 
to have produced a serviceable text-book of psychology. 
The author alone is responsible for the opinions advo- 
cated and for the method of their presentation, as well as 
for any mistakes and deficiencies which may have escaped 
his observation. 

It is as both pupil and teacher that I send out this text- 
book of psychology, and ask for it kindly consideration 
from other pupils and teachers. 

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD. 

Yale University, January, 1898. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGES 

Introductory 1-19 



PART FIRST 

THE PBOCESSES OF MENTAL LIFE 

CHAPTER II 

Consciousness and Elementary Self-consciousness . 20-35 

CHAPTER III 
Attention and Discrimination 36-57 

CHAPTER IV 
Sensation 58-87 

CHAPTER V 
Feeling . 88-111 

CHAPTER VI 
Conation and Movement 112-123 

CHAPTER VII 

Ideation 124-152 

ix 



X CONTENTS 

PAET SECOND 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL LIFE 

CHAPTER VIII 

PAGES 

Impulse, Instinct, and Desire 153-167 

CHAPTER IX 
Perception by the Senses 168-226 

CHAPTER X 
Memory 227-245 

CHAPTER XI 
Imagination 246-256 

CHAPTER XII 
Primary Inference and Judgment .... 257-271 

CHAPTER XIII 
Thought and Language 272-292 

CHAPTER XIV 

Space, Time, and Causation 293-307 

CHAPTER XV 

Knowledge of Things and Knowledge of Self . 308-327 

CHAPTER XVI 
The Emotions and Sentiments 328-353 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XVII 

PAGES 

Will and Character 354-374 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Types and Principles of Mental Development . 375-394 

CHAPTER XIX 
Body and Mind 395-421 



OUTLINES OF DESCRIPTIVE 
PSYCHOLOGY 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Definition of Psychology. — Although it requires much 
time and study to form a worthy conception of the science 
(its nature, method, and aims) of which we are to treat, 
the following preliminary statement will be of use: 
Psychology is the systematic description and explanation of 
the phenomena of consciousness, as such. For the phrase 
"phenomena of consciousness," such terms as "conscious 
states," or "processes," "psychical (or mental) activities," 
or even the technical word "psychoses," may sometimes 
be substituted. For the principal classes of these phe- 
nomena the familiar words, sensations, feelings, ideas, 
memories, imaginings, thoughts, sentiments, decisions, 
choices, etc., must often be employed. What all these 
conscious states in fact are, and what conditions accompany 
and determine them, every adult knows to some extent by 
his own experience. But the complex structure, so to 
speak, and the manifold causes and connections of many of 
them, still baffle the supremest efforts of expert inquirers. 
What these phenomena actually are, as conscious states, 
and how they come to exist and to follow each other in 
the order which they in fact assume, forms the primary 
subject of the investigations of psychology. 

Our definition has restricted the sphere of psychology 
to conscious states, or psychoses, as such. This rather 
1 



Z DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

uncouth way of helping out the formula is necessary, for 
the following reasons. From a certain point of view (and 
this is the distinctively psychological), all the sciences 
may be regarded as only "systematic description and 
explanation " of man's conscious states. Science itself is 
a human psychical activity ; it is systematic and verifiable 
knowing. And since there is no such thing as knowing 
in general, every scientific fact or law is, in what is called 
its subjective aspect, somebody's perception, imagination, 
or cognition. That which, for the scientific botanist, is 
a real thing, a tree or a plant, is for psychology a "phe- 
nomenon of consciousness "; it is in either case a percep- 
tion or conception to which the attribute of "scientific" or 
"unscientific" may be ascribed. The scientific geologist, 
too, gathers the facts of his science only by his own obser- 
vation, or by belief in the reports given by others of their 
observations, — in either case, helped out by imagination 
and memory. His scientific generalizations are, there- 
fore, for the psychologist the conclusions of the mind's 
observing and reasoning processes ; they are judgments, 
thoughts, conjectures, as to what is true or was true. 
But judgments, thoughts, conjectures, etc., are psychical 
events ; they never are, and never can be, anything, in 
themselves considered, but conscious states. 

Now it is " in themselves considered " — ■ the perceptions 
by the senses, the memories, thoughts, conjectures, as 
such — that the psychologist studies the phenomena of 
consciousness. 

Psychologist's Point of View. — The student of nature is 
sometimes said to take the objective point of view, in dis- 
tinction from the point of view taken by the psychologist, 
which is, by way of contrast, then called subjective. The 
distinction is valid and worth the making; but it requires 
a word of explanation. We have just seen that all the 
sciences of nature may be regarded as conscious states of 



NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY 3 

the men who observe the facts, and who think out the 
connections between the facts. But this is to affirm that 
physics, chemistry, geology, botany, and all similar forms 
of knowledge may be regarded as in some sort "sub- 
jective." On the other hand, when I consider my own 
thoughts or imaginings, and when I reflect upon the 
nature of the being which can behave in this way, — can 
be said to "have" the thoughts and imaginings, — I am 
making these psychical processes and psychical powers 
the " objects " of my observation and reflection. Sensa- 
tions, as truly as stones,- — ■ beliefs, as actually, though 
not so successfully, as bees and beetles, — volitions, as 
undoubtedly as volcanoes, — can be made the objects of 
scientific investigation. Yet the psychologist's point of 
view is properly called subjective. 

The more important bearings of this distinction between 
the subjective and the objective cannot be made clear at 
present. But there can be no doubt about some items of 
our experience which enforce the distinction. I am the 
owner (in German the Trager) of my conscious pains and 
pleasures, of my thoughts and sentiments, as I am not of 
any of the natural objects which belong to me. In turn, 
your feelings and thoughts are "yours"; and those of the 
third man yonder are "his"; they are neither yours nor 
mine. Conscious states, as such, are always and unavoid- 
ably held, by the one who observes or reflects upon them, 
to belong to some conscious subject, or Self, whose states 
they are. Only the subject of these conscious states can 
make them the immediate object of observation. Only 
the signs or manifestations of them can be observed by 
others: such as the eye that kindles with love, or the 
cheek that flushes with anger, or the action that follows 
the decisive choice. On the other hand, the owner, or 
subject, of the conscious states does become aware of 
them as no other observer can. His knowledge is — at 



4 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

least, to some extent — internal and subjective, while the 
knowledge of others can only be external and interpreta- 
tive. But more in regard to this distinction will follow 
in other connections. 

Assumptions of the Psychologist. — The student of mental 
life can no more dispense with all assumptions than can 
the student of any form of particular science. Psychology 
has as much right to its list of facts and truths that are 
taken for granted as has either physics or biology. No 
attempt will here be made to give an exhaustive treatment 
of the legitimate assumptions of the psychologist, or even 
to enumerate them without omission of any. Neither can 
the psychologist, any more fitly than the devotee of any 
form of physical science, be called upon to define all the 
terms, or to analyze completely all the conceptions, which 
he is obliged to employ. The following, however, should 
be noted as among the most important. 

It is assumed that there are such facts as conscious pro- 
cesses, or psychoses. But to assume this is only to admit 
that men perceive and feel and reason and choose; and 
such an admission no one can fail to make. On the other 
hand, a scientific definition of consciousness cannot be 
given, and it is foolishness to seek it. For definition 
implies science; and science itself, from the psychologi- 
cal point of view, we have seen to be an elaborate collec- 
tion of related conscious acts. To define consciousness 
would, then, be to resolve what is most primary and ele- 
mental into what is bewilderingly complex, and uncertain. 

It is also assumed that conscious processes may be ob- 
served and studied, and that, as a result of such considera- 
tion, they may be the better understood. The immediate 
evidence for this assumption lies partly in every one's ex- 
perience ; but fuller proof requires an examination of the 
method of psychology and of the doctrine of self-conscious- 
ness. The treatment of these topics will follow later. 



NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY 5 

It is further assumed that conscious processes are con- 
nected with each other. In some valid meaning of the 
words, the sequent mental facts are dependent for their 
character and origin on previous mental facts. Mental 
phenomena are not chaotic or wholly oblivious of law and 
order. Since all the ordering of facts and the total con- 
ception of law, which "science" implies, are primarily of 
mental origin, the mental processes, as such, cannot prove 
wholly disorderly and unsubmissive to law. 

It is assumed, finally, that many of our conscious pro- 
cesses — and mental life generally — are dependent upon 
a variety of external conditions. The common experience 
of men justifies this assumption. Indeed, without making 
it, we can scarcely see how experience itself would be 
possible. It is, of course, unscientific to begin psychology 
with such an assumption as this : " The immediate con- 
dition of a state of consciousness is an activity of some 
sort in the cerebral hemispheres ; " or with any similar 
statement taken for granted. In a preliminary way, psy- 
chology does not even so much as know whether there be 
any cerebral hemispheres. But the psychologist, like the 
student of physics or of chemistry, is obliged to assume 
that "things" do exist, and that they furnish conditions 
for the origin, order, and character of many of our con- 
scious states. For example, I cannot investigate the 
mental phenomena of sensation and perception without 
referring them to the existence and action of the thing 
perceived by the senses. The whole doctrine of the 
quality and quantity of sensation, and of the arising and 
growth of the knowledge of natural objects, connects psy- 
chology with physics, with chemistry, with physiology, 
and with biology. 

The ultimate nature of the Mind, the reality of Things, 
and the actuality of those causal relations which every 
one assumes to exist between things, are subjects for pro- 



6 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

found philosophical inquiry. It is, indeed, difficult for 
the psychologist to avoid introducing such subjects into 
his discussion of mental phenomena. Without disput- 
ing at present as to how far metaphysics is desirable, or 
even necessary, as an admixture in psychology, we simply 
insist upon taking at the beginning a naive and common- 
sense point of view. There are things, — to be perceived, 
remembered, thought about, known, and acted upon ; and 
in our perceiving, thinking of, knowing about, and deal- 
ing with them, these things influence us. There are also 
beings that perceive, remember, think, know, and act upon 
things. They are called "Minds," and it is the facts and 
laws of their life which psychology investigates. 

Psychology as Science. — After what has just been said, 
it seems almost needless to raise the question whether 
psychology can claim for itself a scientific character. If 
by science is meant a system of indubitable facts and 
laws so established that deductions from them amount 
to a demonstration, why then there is scarcely any such 
knowledge in the possession of the human race. Some 
astronomy, some physics, and a little of chemistry would 
seem to cover about all. But there is a use of the word 
"science " which is at once more valid and more gener- 
ous. Wherever there are facts which admit of fairly 
accurate observation, and which can be classified and 
their conditions and interconnections discovered, there 
is material for a scientific growth. That mental facts 
can be thus dealt with, no one has a right to deny who 
has not made himself expert in the use of all the means 
for studying these facts which the modern age provides. 
That a body of facts and of generalizations worthy to be 
called "a science of psychology" actually exists, is suffi- 
ciently proved by its literature. 

Psychology as Descriptive. — Like all the others of a con- 
siderable group of scientific disciplines, psychology has 



NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY 7 

gained its principal successes thus far in the way of en- 
larging the descriptive history of mental life. Description 
is, of course, the primary thing in laying the foundations 
of every science. What are the facts? We need first to 
have them accurately and fully described. We need also 
to have them described in a genetic way ; in a way, that 
is, to correspond with the order of their rise and devel- 
opment. This is the great need, and it is the fundamen- 
tal achievement of all biological studies. Study of all 
things that are alive has thus far resulted, for the most 
part, only in an accumulation of descriptive histories. 
Why the facts are such as we find them to be, and why 
they are so arranged and connected, it is in general im- 
possible to say. To describe, with keen analysis, helped 
on by experiment and in dependence upon cognate sciences, 
the phenomena of consciousness, is the primary aim of 
psychological investigation. Its principal modern achieve- 
ments are in the fields of such description. But this aim 
is subordinate to a more ultimate aim. The supreme final 
purpose of psychology as descriptive science may be de- 
fined as follows : To give an accurate and full history of the 
development of that form of life ivhich we call the Human 
Mind. 

Psychology as Explanatory. — No genuine scientific en- 
deavor is satisfied with mere description. Explanation 
both accompanies and follows, though usually in a lagging 
way, the course of descriptive science. In the stricter 
meaning of the word, science begins only when a knowledge 
of conditions and causes is joined with a knowledge of 
facts. The psychologist always keeps this aim steadily 
in sight. He, too, is never satisfied simply to know what 
the facts are, but ever strives to ascertain under what con- 
ditions, and as due to what determining causes, the facts 
occur. He particularly desires, where this is possible, to 
establish an accurate measurement and to take the relative 



8 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

values of conscious states; as well as to connect them, in 
terms of wider and yet wider generalizations, with that 
varied life of nature which constitutes the environment 
of the individual mind. 

Explanations in psychology may, in general, proceed in 
any one of several directions ; or, rather, each of several 
directions must be followed in order to obtain the fuller 
explanation of mental processes. 

First, the more elaborate mental processes may be 
explained by analyzing them into the simpler and more 
elementary processes. For every conscious state, espe- 
cially of the adult mind, is exceedingly complex. And as 
the mind develops, the complexity of its processes in gen- 
eral increases. " Explanation " by way of psychological 
analysis has been compared to the work of the chemist; 
and there are striking likenesses existing between the two 
kinds of scientific research. But there are yet more strik- 
ing differences. For mental processes, such as the more 
elementary kinds of sensation, ideation, and willing, are 
not real existences, capable, like the atoms, of being actu- 
ally separated out of their combinations. The effect upon 
psychological science of such likenesses and differences as 
exist between psychological analysis and the analysis of the 
physical sciences will become more evident later on. It 
is enough to say here that the words "factors," " elements," 
"fusion of factors" (or elements) do not mean the same 
thing in psychology as in physical science. They are 
figurative, and are designed on the one hand to characterize 
the complex content of consciousness, and, on the other hand, 
to affirm our power of discriminating the different partial 
aspects of this complex content. 

Second, the physical conditions of psychical pro- 
cesses — such as the external stimuli, the structure and 
functions of the bodily organism, and the total natural 
environment — may be studied, and, when discovered, 



NATUEE OF PSYCHOLOGY 9 

used to explain these processes. This form of explanation 
renders psychology dependent upon physics, physiology, 
and biology; and it results in establishing important con- 
nections between it and these other sciences. 

Third, the psychologist aims to explain the later phe- 
nomena of mental life by dependently connecting them 
with the earlier phenomena. In doing this he is always, 
indeed, obliged to confess that his explanation is not 
complete. For there is something other and more in the 
later stages, where these are also the "higher," than can 
be found in conditions furnished by the earlier and lower. 
But, on the other hand, the latter do explain the former, 
in somewhat the same way as that in which a knowledge of 
the structure of the young tree or young animal explains the 
maturer functions of the same being. The key to all such 
explanation is, of course, the complex conception of "De- 
velopment." Psychology endeavors to give a systematic 
exhibition of the general conditions and laws which con- 
trol the evolution of the mental life of the individual man. 

Fourth, psychology is just beginning to recognize the 
immense influence upon the individual of his social envi- 
ronment. It was this which the lines of the German poet 
emphasized : — 

" Would'st thou make thine own acquaintance, 
Then see how other men behave." 

Of this entire great truth, the other side is expressed by 
the same poet in the lines which follow : — 

" Would'st thou understand thy fellows, 
Of thine own heart take regard." 

There is not a mental function of the individual man 
which is not better understood as dependent upon the 
social conditions of his birth, education, and daily sur- 
roundings. 



10 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Problem of Psychology. — The mental life of the indi- 
vidual man is full of unsolved and difficult problems. 
Every mental process has its peculiar problem, or rather 
group of problems. He who eats and digests his dinner 
furnishes the practical answer to questions for which no 
physiologist has a sufficiently full and unimpeachable 
theory. The plain man in the daily use of his powers of 
vision is a puzzle to the psychologist. Normal perception 
by the senses is no less full of problems than are the illu- 
sions of the dreamer or the hallucinations of the hypnotized 
or the insane. It is with an appetite for hard problems 
that the student of psychology should approach the subject. 

All subordinate problems, however, may be merged in 
the one great, inclusive problem before psychology. This 
problem may be stated as follows : To understand the real 
nature of that mental life of which all conscious states are 
members and parts, and to know the conditions and laws 
which control its genesis and development. 

Method in Psychology. — In spite of much debate over 
psychological method, we cannot consider this question 
as worthy of detailed consideration. Indeed, one can 
scarcely speak with propriety of the method in psychology. 
All means to a more accurate and complete description of 
conscious states, and to the fuller and more precise know- 
ledge of their external conditions and their interconnec- 
tions, belong to legitimate psychological method. Those 
who make a fight for what they call " objective " and 
"scientific" method as against introspection, or for ex- 
periment as against reflection, are not so wrong in what 
they claim as in what they are inclined to deny. The 
so-called " new psychology " has no existence as a com- 
plete break-off from the old psychology. The laboratory 
and the study, the "reacting-table " and the thinker's 
"chair," cannot be kept unacquainted with each other, 
without injury to both. 



METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 11 

Introspection in Psychology. — At the same time there is 
a way of ascertaining the facts, and, to a certain extent, 
the conditions and laws of relation between them, which 
is peculiar to the scientific treatment of mental states. 
This way, or method, is called " introspection " ; some- 
times "reflection," or "secondary" or "intentional 
self-consciousness." True, self -perception is often self- 
deception. And it has been correctly argued that we 
cannot even begin to examine our own consciousness, 
with a view to know its contents, without at once 
profoundly modifying the very contents we propose to 
examine. To suppose that what we "think about" our 
psychoses is a true description of the actually existing 
psychoses themselves, has fitly been pointed out as chief 
of the psychologist's fallacies. 

On the other hand, the very modification which our 
activity in self-observation introduces may itself be ob- 
served. And he who denies that some sort of "imme- 
diate awareness " of one's conscious states is possible runs 
counter to all human experience. " Surely " — every man 
affirms with naive but invincible conviction — "I may 
know that I have, and when I have, a bodily pain, and 
whereabouts in the system of bodily localities I am 
obliged to place it." And how can I doubt that I have 
thoughts, and what I think about this or that sensible 
object or abstract question ? Only the development of 
psychological science itself can determine the dangers 
and safeguards, the risks and fallacies, of the introspec- 
tive method in psychology. 

Reserving further hints for other connections, we affirm, 
in a preliminary \va,y: Self -observation of conscious states 
is able not only to reveal them to us as true objects of know- 
ledge, but also to assist us to analyze those states and to dis- 
cover their real conditions. And without self-observation 
such states can neither be known nor analyzed. 



12 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

The marked improvement which the training of one's powers of 
introspection brings about is matter of indubitable experience with 
the earnest student of psychology. This improvement is especially 
marked, for example, in the direct analysis of the overtones which it 
becomes possible to detect in the complex musical sound of ordinary 
experience. Another good example is found in the experience of 
those who carefully observe their skin sensations, with a view to sepa- 
rate the different elements which blend in the case of what is called 
"feeling" things with the hand. Undoubtedly our so-called "feel- 
ings " in general are very difficult of description and of scientific 
treatment. But this is not because we are not immediately aware 
of them in any trustworthy way. On the contrary, it is of our pres- 
ent feelings, especially when they are obtrusive and strong, that we 
are most directly and unequivocally aware. 

Experiment in Psychology. — While a certain amount of 
experiment has always been connected with investigations 
in psychology., the use of carefully prepared and closely 
guarded experimentation is a very modern achievement. 
The value and success of the so-called experimental method 
ought not to be questioned. At the same, time, its 
devotees are tempted to exaggerate its promise and its 
superior productiveness. It certainly can never be pur- 
sued without dependence upon introspection. And it is 
easier, perhaps, to excel in the manipulation of mechanism 
than in the trustworthy report of the content of conscious- 
ness, as indicated and measured by the mechanism. More- 
over, it is only the comparatively simple sensory-motor 
activities, the less complex and subtle associations, and 
the more elementary forms of feeling and choice, which 
lend themselves readily to experiment. 

In spite of the lengthy and heated debate which has been carried 
on over the use of introspection, and over the method of psychology 
in general, there is really little chance for an intelligent and wide 
difference of view. Physiological and experimental psychology can no 
more dispense with introspection than can the most old-fashioned kind 
of the so-called " old psychology." But, on the other hand, physiology 
and experiment have contributed much the larger part of the assured 



METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY 13 

and permanent recent additions to psychological science. Again, 
when Volkmann rejects both the inductive and the deductive methods 
and introduces what he calls the " genetic " method, he can carry out 
his own way of handling mental phenomena only by virtually using 
the methods he rejects. On the other hand, the " genetic " method, 
or study of the genesis and development of individual mental pro- 
cesses and of the whole mental life, is characteristic of modern psy- 
chological science ; as it is, indeed, of all the modern sciences. Some 
of the most distinguished followers of this method, however, — as, for 
example, Herbart and his successors in Germany, and Herbert Spencer 
and his adherents in Great Britain and this country, — have misused 
this method by substituting their own theoretical abstractions for the 
actual and living activities of the mind. 

Doctrine of Psychological Method. — The complete circle 
of means to be employed in realizing the aims of mental 
science embraces observation, analysis, induction, and the 
framing of theories, — to be tested, when this is possible, 
by experiment. In other words, the method of psychology 
is (1) observative of facts, (2) analytic, (3) inductive, 
(4) genetic, or pursued as a study in development. Ob- 
servation of conscious states is direct or indirect; the 
method of the former is introspection ; the method of the 
latter is, in general, interpretation of physical signs. 
The one is sometimes spoken of as an envisagement of 
one's own mental processes; the other is an inference from 
the behavior of others as to what their mental processes 
are. Analysis, induction, and the framing of a theory of 
connections between the facts, and of the laws of the 
development indicated by the facts, are not, as methods 
of investigation, peculiar to the science of psychology. 
The scientific method is, however, possible in the study 
of mental processes, because these processes admit of 
analysis, induction, and theorizing, on the basis of care- 
ful and guarded observation. 

Sources of Psychology. — To enumerate all the springs of 
information and suggestion open to the student of psy- 



14 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

chology would require a survey of the entire field of 
human mental life. His one constant endeavor is to note 
every manifestation of mind, to make it an object of 
knowledge, and to explain it in accordance with other 
facts and known laws of mental life. From the new-born 
infant to the philosopher Kant, from the idiot or madman 
to Aristotle, all human conscious processes constitute the 
field of his science. 

In connection with introspection and experiment, where 
the latter is possible, the following sources of psychology 
may be noted: (1) The artistic delineations of human 
mental life. These include the drama, poetry, and espe- 
cially, at present, the novel, or prose romantic composi- 
tion. All true art requires and displays insight into soul 
life. It is not, however, the so-called "psychological" 
dramas or novels which ordinarily have most of genuine 
and valuable insight. 

(2) Social phenomena, and the historical and theoretical 
discussion of these phenomena, furnish valuable material 
to the psychologist. The institutions, customs, laws, of 
different peoples and eras, should be studied as the out- 
come of their unfolding mental life. Breadth, caution, 
and sympathy are particularly necessary here. For while 
"race-psychology" is an important branch of the general 
science, and a necessary connection exists between it and 
that complex of facts called "anthropology," it is not a 
Puritanic, or a Teutonic, or an Oriental, but a human 
psychology, which we seek. 

(3) In psychology, as in physiology and in biological 
studies in general, abnormal and pathological phenomena 
require expert investigation. Such investigation is often 
a fruitful source of psychological knowledge. Hence the 
value of studies in hypnotism, insanity, criminology, 
idioc}% etc., for the science of psychology. 

(4) Observation of the mental processes of infants and 



DIVISIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 15 

children, and even (5) of the lower animals, is necessary 
to a better analysis of the mature mental processes of 
man, and to the detection of hitherto concealed factors 
within them. Such observation is indispensable to the 
understanding of human mental life as being what it 
undoubtedly is — a Development. 

But, finally (6), the student of psychology can no more 
easily than can the student of any modern science dispense 
with the reading of treatises which record the results of 
other's observations and reflections. For this science, 
too, grows at the hands of many workmen, and he who 
attempts it in isolation from his fellow-workmen is cer- 
tain to deceive himself with a pretence of knowledge. 

In this brief treatise, no attempt will be made to employ 
the different methods, or to draw from the different sources, 
so as to emphasize the distinctions that exist between 
them. We shall give a brief description of the mental 
life of the individual man, — its chief processes and its 
history in development, — availing ourselves on each topic 
of the results of all the different methods and sources. 

Divisions of Psychology. — The entire field of psychologi- 
cal inquiry has been variously divided. A division which 
was for a long time prevalent recognized two disciplines : 
Empirical Psychology and Rational Psychology. The 
former aimed to treat mental processes as themselves 
objects of experience, and so to establish a descriptive 
science of these processes. The latter discussed the more 
speculative problems entering into a theory of the Mind 
as the really-existing subject of mental states. The dis- 
tinction is valid and should be recognized by all students 
of psychology. But no author who has treated of the 
entire "round" of the mental life has succeeded perfectly 
in carrying out the distinction. The study we propose is 
to establish a science which is mainly descriptive, but also ex- 
planatory, on the basis of undoubted facts of experience. 



16 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

This is empirical psychology, or psychology as a " natural " 
science, in the widest meaning of the adjective. But 
among the explanatory assumptions, certain positions as 
to the real nature of mind and of things, and of the rela- 
tions between them, are almost unavoidable. 1 

Since the time of Kant the field of empirical psychology 
has customarily been divided among the three so-called 
" Faculties " of Intellect, Feeling, and Will. For reasons 
which will appear in their full force later on, and espe- 
cially because we wish to emphasize the scientific method 
of analysis and the conception of development, we shall 
reject this division. We shall treat of the phenomena of 
consciousness under two general heads : (1) Mental Pro- 
cesses and (2) Mental Development. The first division 
will discuss those elementary forms of conscious experi- 
ence which the analysis of psychological science discovers 
in each and every condition of human mental life. The 
second division will trace the growth of mind in various 
directions, as these elementary processes become more 
varied in combination and richer in achievement. 

Doctrine of Mental Faculties. — The so-called " old psy- 
chology" has been accused of making a misuse of the 
doctrine of mental faculties. And, although the accusa- 
tion has too often been excessive, it is not without justifi- 
cation. It is nearly equivalent, however, to saying that 
the earlier forms of this science were obliged to content 
themselves, for the most part, with classification. Pre- 
vious to modern investigations, psychologists could do 
little in the way of scientific explanation. They could 
only say, thus and so the mind behaves ; it perceives, re- 
members, imagines, thinks, feels, and wills. Of course, 
if such activities were referred to the mind's "having a 

1 For a full discussion of the metaphysical problems, the student may- 
be referred to the author's Philosophy of Mind, Charles Scribner's Sons, 
New York, and Longmans and Co., London, 1895. 



DIVISIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY 17 

faculty''' of perceiving, remembering, thinking, etc., this 
was to confess ignorance of their real causes. Psycho- 
logical science aims to know under what conditions the 
mind perceives, remembers, thinks, this rather than some- 
thing else; and to estimate and approximately measure, 
as it were, such conditions. 

Important truths, however, which the modern psycholo- 
gist cannot afford to overlook, were implied in the ancient 
doctrine of faculties. First of all, this truth: All classifi- 
cation of psychic facts, as immediately known, is accom- 
panied by an implied or express assignment of them to the 
same Subject of all. This truth will be more fully set 
forth in the following chapters. 

The basis for the doctrine of mental faculties consists in the fact 
that the complex experiences of our daily lives differ greatly in their 
more important characteristics, and yet that characteristically like 
experiences are frequently recurring. For example, we are suffering 
with toothache or headache, one day, and another day, we are enjoy- 
ing ourselves in the open air or in some social gathering. Still another 
day, we are engaged in thinking out some problem ; and on a fourth 
day, we are largely given up to remembering or to the play of imagi- 
nation. The first and the second characteristic experiences agree in 
that they are both forms of " feeling " ; but they are diametrically 
opposed in that one is painful and the other pleasurable. The third 
and fourth experiences are unlike either of these forms of feeling and 
yet agree in being intellectual activities. As intellectual activities, 
however, they have markedly different characteristics. Since, then, 
all so-called "elements," or "factors," are the modes of the function- 
ing of one Subject, what more natural than that the various principal 
modes of its functioning should be spoken of as the " capacities," 
"faculties," or 5' powers " of this one Subject? The language of com- 
mon life, in which we always find the embodiment of genuine psycho- 
logical truth, indicates the necessity for doing this. 

The Mind a Unity. — That some sort of unifying must 
be admitted for every "stream of consciousness" which 
comes to be called a "Self," the popular voice and the 
science of psychology agree in asserting. As to the nature 



18 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

of this unity, the philosophy of mind finds one of its most 
interesting problems. The science we pursue, however, 
notes these two truths as facts underlying the empirical 
unifying of mental processes : — 

1. Every psychic fact is actually complex tvith an irre- 
ducible threefold complexity ; it is, at the same time, a fact 
of intellection, a fact of feeling, and a fact of conation. 

2. All the more elaborate mental processes, and the dif- 
ferent so-called faculties, must be considered as resulting 
from the development of mental life by the combination and 
elaboration of the elementary psychical activities. 

Psychology and Other Studies. — ■ What has already been 
said as to the nature of psychological science, its sources 
and its methods, must serve to suggest its relations to the 
other particular sciences. To all the sciences of man it 
is introductory, fundamental, indispensable. With all 
the biological sciences its connections are most intimate 
and mutually helpful. With the other forms of science 
its relations are more remote. But with what is called 
"Philosophy" its relations are so intimate that one of 
the greatest of modern psychologists (Wundt) has justly 
declared : " The partition of sovereignty between the two 
is an abstract scheme, which, in the presence of actuality, 
always appears unsatisfactory." 

We conclude, then, from this introductory survey of 
our field : — 

1. Psychology is a science, because the processes and 
development of man's mental life admit of accurate descrip- 
tion and of a certain amount of explanation, by discovery of 
the conditions under which they arise and of the laws that 
regulate their occurrence. 

2. The method of this science is, like that of every 
other science, complex, and is to be learned only by a grow- 
ing experience. It is peculiar, however, in that every 
special method employed must be accompanied by intro- 



PSYCHOLOGY AND OTHER SCIENCES 19 

spection and followed by reflection upon the significance 
of the facts in their relation to the one Subject of them all 
(the Mind). 

3. The important connections of psychology with other 
sciences are almost universal; but they are especially in- 
timate with the biological sciences, and above all with the 
sciences of man. Psychology is also the one indispensable 
propaedeutic, or introduction, to those more ultimate prob- 
lems of human reflection which concern the discipline 
called "Philosophy." 

[On the Nature of Psychology, see Sully : The Human Mind, I, 
chap, i; Baldwin: Handbook of Psychology, I, chap. i. On psy- 
chology as a so-called "Natural Science," see James: The Principles 
of Psychology, I, chap, i, vi, vii, and passim in both vols. On Method 
in Psychology, consult also J. S. Mill : Logic, bk. VI, chap, iv, and 
Rabier, Lecons de Philosophie, I, La Psychologie, chap. iv. On Ex- 
periment in Psychology, see Scripture : The New Psychology (through- 
out). As studied from the comparative point of view, Wundt's 
Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology (translation by J. E. 
Creighton and E. B. Titchenei-) is especially to be recommended.] 



PART FIRST 
THE PROCESSES OF MENTAL LIFE 

CHAPTER II 

CONSCIOUSNESS AND ELEMENTARY 
SELF-CONSCIO USNESS 

Meaning of the Term " Consciousness." — Obviously the 
psychologist is in need of some term that will apply to all 
the phenomena alike, out of which he proposes to construct 
his science. This term we took the liberty of supplying 
when these phenomena were, in the definition, said to 
be "phenomena of consciousness" or conscious states and 
processes. In the same connection the admission was 
made that, from its very nature, consciousness cannot be 
defined. It may be described in some sort, however, by 
setting it into contrast with "the unconscious." What 
we are when we are awake, and what we are not when we 
fall into a quiet dreamless sleep ; what we are as we go 
about our daily work, and what we are not when an over- 
powering blow upon the head is received, — that it is "to 
be conscious." Or, again, what diminishes as we pass 
into some form of stupor and increases when we are aroused 
from the stupor, that is "our consciousness." 

Unconsciousness psychologically Inconceivable. — It is at 
once apparent that we can frame no picture of "the un- 
conscious " as a form of mental life. In other words, the 
conception of unconsciousness is, for psychology, a nega- 
tive conception. About such a condition or mode of being 
one can only say, it is not a conscious state or process ; it 
20 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 21 

is no mental or psychical event. Total unconsciousness 
is the complete absence of all psychoses. Now by the 
study of conscious processes, as such, but especially by 
investigation of their conditions and constituents, it may 
be possible to establish the theory that the mind is capable 
of other activities than those which manifest themselves 
"in consciousness." But such theory can never divest 
itself of the necessity of using terms of conscious experi- 
ence. Wherever we can discern or infer conscious states 
and processes, there we have phenomena upon which psy- 
chological science may throw its lights. But for psychol- 
ogy the unconscious is the denial of the truly psychical 
or mental. 

Conscious States. — What is meant by a conscious state 
or process may now be made somewhat clearer. In the 
flowing life of the mind no fixed parts can be marked off, 
as is the case with objects extended, or with changes occur- 
ring, in space. Nor does the mental life so flow in time 
that its moments can be separated by cross-lines, as it were, 
between which the separate states or processes are located. 
Abrupt changes in the character of these states do, indeed, 
not infrequently occur. We are certainly in a quite dif- 
ferent "state of mind," when just stung by the bee lurking 
in the flower, from that in which we were a moment before 
while admiring the flower's beauty. 

In general, however, it is obvious that one's mental 
life has considerable continuity and smoothness of flow. 
When "deep" in thought, as it is so expressively said, it 
takes time -and a strong pull to get us up and out of our 
thoughts into some form of bodily action. When "suf- 
fering under" a strong emotion, we usually have to get 
gradually over into a condition of predominating thought- 
fulness or of deliberate choice. 

Continuity of Mental States. — It is probable, if not abso- 
lutely certain, that there is never a complete break between 



22 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

two successive processes or conditions of the mental life. 
At each moment, that is, the complex of consciousness 
includes within itself the lingering phases or "reverbera- 
tions " of the just previous conscious state. And the 
present complex, in turn, holds anticipations of, germinal 
contributions to, the coming conscious state. This prin- 
ciple of continuity which connects the different moments 
of the conscious life may be illustrated in several ways. 
What goes on in the field of a slowly revolving kaleido- 
scope affords an illustration. Or let the series of so-called 
"states " be represented by A, B, C, D, •••, N; then, since 
A = (a, b, e, d, e, etc.), B = (c, d, e 9 f, g, etc.), C=(e,f,g, 
h, i, etc.), and D = (#, A, i, j, Jc, etc.), the change of con- 
scious states may be represented by a flow of (a, 5, c, d, e, 
etc.) into (c, d, e, f, g, etc.), into (e, /, g, 7i, i, etc.), and 
so on. Or, perhaps better still, the same truth might be 
illustrated by the way the successive areas enclosed within 
the line drawn by a point on the disk of a wheel, that 
enlarges and contracts as it moves forward with a varying 
rate of speed, would include portions of each other. To 
take a concrete instance : a picture of a star-fish is seen ; 
a visual image of dried star-fish is aroused ; this seems to 
be placed in a box ; and a memory of a particular star-fish 
actually seen some ten years ago follows, etc. 

Discriminating Activity applied in Conscious States. — So 
far as can be discovered, human consciousness is never 
merely a passive area for the reception of impressions. 
The simplest forms of conscious life are mental activities, 
as well as modifications of that life by conditions outside 
of it. And the so-called "states " or "processes " of mind 
do not separate themselves, as atoms leave their old rela- 
tions and enter into new relations with other atoms for 
which they have the greater affinity. As conscious states 
or processes, they must be separated, and recognized as 
apart, by mental activity. This primary "discriminating 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 23 

consciousness " is the prerequisite of all distinguishable 
elements or states of consciousness. A pain that were 
not recognized as a conscious pain would not be a pain at 
all, in the psychological meaning of the word. It could 
not be a psychosis, it could only be a physiological condi- 
tion of a psychosis to be expected. On the other hand, 
consciousness, so far as it can be made the object of psycho- 
logical investigation, is synonymous with 'psychical state, 
regarded as discriminated, however faintly, in respect of 
content, and related, however imperfectly, to the stream of 
mental life. 

At this point the following quotation (Philosophy of Mind, p. 85 f .) 
emphasizes a matter of the utmost importance to the science of psy- 
chology: "It is a most important fallacy in much of the current 
psychology to assume that the whole of any mental phenomenon is 
described and explained when the mere ' content ' of consciousness has 
been described and explained. ... Of course, no psychosis can be 
scientifically treated in neglect of its description and explanation, 
content-wise. For a psychosis without content is equivalent to no 
psychosis at all." But another aspect, a different "potency," equally 
belongs to all the phenomena of consciousness. '■'■For all conscious- 
ness, and every phenomenon of consciousness, makes the demand to be 
considered as a form of functioning, and not as mere differentiation of 
content. Phenomena of consciousness are always conscious activities, 
as truly as they are contents of consciousness. Consciousness is itself 
consciousness of activity — fundamentally so ; and it is so all the way 
through from the lowest to the highest and most developed forms of 
functioning." 

Whatever unity any complex mental state possesses^ 
must be imparted to it, so to speak, by so much of dis- 
criminating consciousness as is in it. This will appear 
more clearly when the nature of attention and discrimina- 
tion, as mental activities, has been discussed. It is suffi- 
cient now to note that without these activities being 
admitted, the very term "states of consciousness " has no 
intelligible meaning. Admitting the presence of such 
activities, we arrive at the following conception of "a 



24 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

state of consciousness ": It is such portion of the actual life 
of consciousness as may be, by discriminating activity of 
consciousness, considered as a unity, both with respect to its 
own so-called constitution, and also with respect to its relation 
to other states of the same life. 

"Field" of Consciousness. — The use of a convenient fig- 
ure of speech enables us to speak of different " fields " as 
distinguishable in the conscious life of mind. Several 
features of our most undoubted experiences are empha- 
sized in this way. Among these the more important are 
the following: (1) Some so-called conscious states are 
richer in content than are others; they have more of 
thoughts, feelings, and of striving and doing compressed 
into them, like a given area of a thickly sown and thrifty 
field of grain. (2) Some conscious states extend over 
more time than do others, — this time being measured by 
the "grasp" of discriminating activity that has just been 
referred to as necessary to effect the unity which all 
conscious states must have. The amount of the field 
brought under the surveyor's eye is not the same at all 
times. (3) Different conscious states change their more 
prominent characteristics with varying degrees of rapidity, 
as the fields lying beside the railway change when the 
speed of the train is increased or slackened. But the 
one important thing to observe is (4) that the very word 
"field," in its most figurative use for the psychologist's 
purpose, implies that something corresponding to the sur- 
veyor's eye seems everywhere to be implied. It is this 
fact which leads some students of the science to claim that 
there is no such thing as human consciousness which does 
not involve at least a rudimentary seZ/'-consciousness. 

The word " consciousness " has been used by different psychologists 
with a considerable range of meanings. Some (Porter : The Human 
Intellect, p. 83) have identified it with self-consciousness as the 
"power by which the soul knows its own acts and states." Others 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 25 

have used the word as an "inner witness" or "inner light" (Cousin 
and Hickok). Sir William Hamilton employed it as a collective 
term for the cognitive aspect, or factors, of psychical states. On the 
other hand, many German writers, and modern psychologists gener- 
ally, argue against identifying consciousness and self-consciousness. 
They deny that we must believe every psychic fact to have all this 
mechanism concealed in its interior. They ask for the evidence of 
this universal double entendre, or twofoldness of all our conscious 
states. In some cases, however, this lively protest against the old- 
fashioned view of the presence of self-consciousness in all conscious- 
ness — even that which has reference to external things — is apt to 
be followed by admissions which, in a measure, refute the other 
extreme position. Not infrequently these admissions come to this: 
" Consciousness is the condition in which we not only have the con- 
tent of the idea in the soul, but also perceive or remark the same " 
(Fortlage). The truth seems to be that, although consciousness may 
properly be identified with all psychic facts as mere occurrences, 
psychic facts cannot be known as such, without involving at least 
inchoate and confused self-consciousness. The beginning of self-con- 
sciousness is consciousness considered no longer as bare psychic fact, 
but as discriminating its own state and relating this particular state 
to others in the stream of conscious life. 

Physical Conditions of Consciousness. — Biology and human 
physiology and hygiene have recently thrown much light 
upon those conditions of the body, and especially of the 
brain, which determine the occurrence and nature of con- 
scious processes. These conditions are, in general, the 
integrity of the nervous system, with its threefold arrange- 
ment of end-organs, connecting nerve-tracts, and central 
organs. Among the central organs, it is the brain on whose 
functions the conscious life of man is chiefly and directly 
dependent. The brain-centres must be supplied with prop- 
erly oxygenized arterial blood. If circulation of such 
blood is stopped, consciousness ceases. If it is corrupted 
with drugs or products of diseased tissue, the characteris- 
tics of the conscious states are profoundly modified. 1 

1 For a fuller discussion of such topics, see the author's Elements of 
Physiological Psychology, and Outlines of Physiological Psychology. 



26 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Moreover, all consciousness apparently involves a cer- 
tain heightening of molecular activity in the brain-cen- 
tres. Thus there is reason to apply the general biological 
law to the physical conditions of our conscious processes. 
All activity of tissue is conditioned upon its being decom- 
posed and then regenerated by nourishment. Intensity of 
consciousness depends upon intensity of neural function; 
the latter depends upon intensity of the work of decomposi- 
tion, and is inversely as the ease and rapidity with which 
the inner work of one nerve-element is transmitted to another. 

The sensitiveness of the nervous mass to the most delicate external 
stimuli is almost incredible. The sensitiveness of the mind's reac- 
tions in consciousness to the agitations of the mass by these stimuli is 
also marvellous. Thus Haller noticed that the noise of beating a 
drum increased the flow of blood from an open vein ; and Mosso 
observed that the approach of a lamp toward a patient whose brain 
was exposed increased the volume of the brain-substance. M. Payot 
claims to have seen the respiratory rhythm and pulse-rate of a sleep- 
ing infant changed by the passage of a cloud over the sun ; and 
M. Fere found that even slight sensations of sound and smell affect 
a man's dynamometric force. How amazingly delicate are some of 
our sensations will appear later on. 

A practical lesson, of especial value to students and teachers, is 
taught by these facts. The physical mechanism with which they are 
dealing is the most complicated, sensitive, and wonderful thing in the 
world. In some respects, it is most manageable and enduring. But 
its exhausted patience is difficult of recovery and its wrath of long 
standing is not easily appeased. And while it will do an enormous 
amount of work, if well nourished, properly rested, and kept as free 
as possible from violent or secret emotional frictions, it will not over- 
look or forget violations of the laws under which it performs its 
functions. 

Characters of Different "Fields" of Consciousness. — Noth- 
ing is more impressive to the persistent student of psy- 
chology than the immense complexity of conscious 
processes. All study of psychology serves to illustrate 
this truth : — 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 27 

In developed mental life every conscious state must be re- 
garded as resulting from an immense number of factors that 
form a so?-t of organic unity. 

It has already been urged that, when we speak of mental 
factors or elements as existing in "a sort of organic unity," 
we must not understand these words in such manner as to 
mislead our conception of the real nature of every con- 
scious state. As Professor James has said: "Whatever 
things are thought in relation are thought from the outset 
in a unity, in a single pulse of subjectivity, a single psy- 
chosis, feeling, or state of mind." But the other side of 
the truth has been well expressed by M. Paulhan : " Every 
psychic fact is a system — a synthesis of facts more or 
less perfectly coordinated." 

Putting both truths together, we may assert, on the 
basis of every man's experience, what psychological science 
illustrates and demonstrates; namely, that different so- 
called "fields of consciousness " differ in respect of (1) cir- 
cuit or extent, (2) intensity, (3) time-rate, (4) specific, 
complex quality. 

Extent or Circuit of Consciousness. — The old-fashioned 
psychology agreed with Mr. Spencer's equally a priori 
and unwarrantable conclusion, in thinking that only one 
object can be present in consciousness at the same time. 
Experiment shows that this restriction of the grasp of con- 
sciousness as a discriminating activity is incorrect. The 
time-moment of consciousness is not like a mathematical 
point; it always includes a survey of a field of more or 
less circuit or extent. 

Different sensory impressions, under a variety of chang- 
ing circumstances, may be "grasped together" in con- 
sciousness with a clear discernment of their existence as 
different in the same field. With the most favorable 
interval (0.2-0.3 sec), one experimenter found the maxi- 
mum even number of successive impressions of sound 



28 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

which could come under one mental "grasp" to be 16, 
the maximum odd number, 15. Professor Cattell tested 
the "grasp of consciousness " by displaying from 4 to 15 
perpendicular lines for 0.01 sec. Of 8 persons experi- 
mented with, 2 could discern correctly the number seen up 
to 6, but none beyond 6. Dr. Krohn's experiments showed 
that 5 or 6 tactual impressions, occurring simultaneously, 
could be more or less imperfectly localized in one field of 
consciousness ; but, in most cases, the surplus of a larger 
number either "fused " with one another or dropped wholly 
out of consciousness. 

Different persons differ widely, as everybody correctly 
believes, in their mental grasp. We recall how David 
Copperfield wandered about London streets stupefied with 
grief, and yet noticing the minute details of surrounding 
objects. Frederick the Great boasted of his father that 
he died with the " eye of consciousness " turned, like that 
of a scientific observer, upon all the phenomena of dying. 
Any theory which reduces the difference in conscious 
grasp, between Aristotle and Peter von Hacklander, — 
the stupid soldier who could never recall at one time more 
than two of the three constituents of gunpowder, — to 
difference in time-rate of conscious processes, is surely 
absurd. 

Intensity of Consciousness. — Different fields of conscious- 
ness differ, in some recognizable way, in the amounts of 
psychic energy which characterize them. We all live more 
in one minute, at certain times, than in many minutes of 
ordinary daily experience. This difference, too, is not to 
be resolved into one of time-rate merely. Indeed, nothing 
is more characteristic of mental life than the unceasing 
changes in the intensity of energy which it displaj^s. 

So marked and observable are the characteristic intensi- 
ties of different fields of consciousness that we can easily 
imagine some kind of a scale for measurement set up, and 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 29 

a resulting tabulation along that scale of the successive 
fields. As has already been indicated, the life of con- 
sciousness undergoes rhythmic changes in intensity. This 
truth will be further illustrated when we come to treat 
of attention and of its variations. 

Time-rate of Consciousness. — The speed of mental pro- 
cesses varies, within given limits, in dependence upon a 
variety of conditions. This is true as respects both the 
rate at which the individual conscious states form them- 
selves, and also the rate at which they succeed each other 
in the stream of consciousness. In the first place, — a 
certain amount of objective time is required to form any 
field of consciousness, — "fo> come to consciousness" at all, 
as we are accustomed to say. This is true of sensation, 
perception, memory, association, choice, or whatever may 
be the predominating characteristics of the particular field. 
And there is probably a particular time for every indi- 
vidual which is most favorable for the formation of all 
elaborate and clearly discriminated conscious states. 

The time required for the perfection of mental processes 
increases, in general, as the degree and amount of dis- 
crimination and choice entering into them are increased. 
To explain, suppose that we divide different mental pro- 
cesses as follows: (1) merely having sensations with a 
minimum of discrimination as to what the "significance " 
of the sensations is ; (2) perceiving things as having such 
or such characteristics, — a higher degree of discriminat- 
ing consciousness (sometimes called "apperception"); 
(3) more or 'less deliberate choice as to the direction of 
attention, or as to what we will do with the things apper- 
ceived. Then we may say: Perception requires more 
time than merely having sensations, and, among percep- 
tions, those which have in them most of apperception; 
but if choice is required as a part of the mental process, 
then yet more time must be allowed. 



30 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

To illustrate definitely : To signify by some simple reaction (such 
as pressing a key) that one is having a sensation requires 0.1-0.3 sec. 
Different sensations require different fractions of a second to form 
themselves clearly in consciousness. Thus Goldscheider found that 
temperature sensations come to consciousness later than those of 
contact, and that cold is perceived much quicker than heat. The 
difference increases with the distance of the stimulus from the brain, 
and it may in certain extreme cases amount to 0.5 sec. The whole 
subject is well illustrated by the experiments of Baxt. He found that 
if a disk with letters on it be displayed, and then quickly followed by 
a white disk, when the interval between the two is about 5 a- (<r here, 
and elsewhere, signifies 0.001 sec), the first disk is seen as a trace of a 
weak glimmer. At 9.6 o- interval, letters appear in the glimmer, one 
or two of which can be partially recognized at 14.4 <r. Four letters 
can be well recognized at 33.6 <r ; and six letters at 52.8 o-. 

The stream of consciousness, the succession of conscious 
states which make up the life of consciousness, flows with 
varying degrees of rapidity. "Fast living" is no un- 
meaning figure of speech as applied here. " Slow coaches " 
is a slang phrase, but not inappropriately used for some 
minds. Three truths should be borne in mind on this 
subject: (1) The speed in development and in succession 
belonging to different series of mental states is different 
for different classes of states. This has already been 
sufficiently illustrated. (2) In general, the time-rate of 
consciousness depends upon a large number of not easily 
calculable factors ; yet it has its maximum and its mini- 
mum. (3) Different persons, under similar circumstances, 
show different time-rates for the movement of the con- 
scious life. They are "fast," "moderate," or "slow"; 
but no one can exceed certain limits of the human mind. 

The simplest kind of sensory-motor reaction can scarcely require 
less than 0.1 sec. The most elaborate processes can scarcely hold 
their own in consciousness so as to retain the unity of one state for 
more than \ sec. We cannot dwell long on any fairly self-identical 
object with the eye of discriminating consciousness. The mind's 
clock takes time to tick ; but its life is a succession of more or less 
clearly distinguishable ticks. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 31 

Quality of Consciousness. — It has already been claimed 
that all the fundamental "faculties " are employed in every 
complex mental process. It has even been claimed that 
" every psychic fact is a system." To quote Dr. Ward: 
" The most elementary facts of mind cannot be expressed 
in less than three propositions : I feel somehow, I know 
something, I do something." We cannot remember or 
think without both feeling and willing. Yet just as 
plainly the different fields of consciousness differ widely 
in their characteristics. This difference is emphasized in 
the language used by all men to describe their experience, 
and to express the changing relations in which they figura- 
tively regard themselves (the Ego, the Self) as standing 
to the differing experiences. Thus they speak of them- 
selves as "buried in reverie," "lost in" painful or sweet 
memories, "plunged in" thought, "carried away "with 
appetite, "swept by" storms of passion, "driven by" 
impulse, or as "exercising control over" their own emo- 
tions and practical lives. How wide the difference, for 
example, between the sensuous and the repentant moods 
of the Magdalene, between the philosopher reflecting over 
the mysteries of ultimate Being and the philosopher enjoy- 
ing his dinner, between Alexander drunk and Alexander 
sober. How immense the range of characteristic qualities 
between the conscious states of the most gifted and the 
most stupid, or between the purest saints and the most 
wretched sinners. 

Relations of Extent, Intensity, and Time-rate. — Intimate 
and varied interrelations exist between the different promi- 
nent characteristics of the changing conscious states. 
Especially is this true of the circuit, the energy, and the 
speed of consciousness. In all expenditure of psychic 
energy, the time-rate, the intensity, and the number of 
objects over which the aggregate of disposable attention 
is distributed, are, indeed, so interdependent that they 



32 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



may be conceived of as functions of the one mind and 
capable of statement in something like the terms of a 
mathematical formula. Intense thought, or feeling, or 
action requires time; clear discernment bears some pro- 
portion both to the complexity of the object submitted for 
mental analysis and to the time allowed for that analysis. 
Some attention can be given to several objects in the one 
field of consciousness; but "absorbing" attention can be 
given only to one central object (the object in the "clear- 
spot " of the mind's field of vision), and this for only a 
brief time. So with the psychic energy involved in 
conscious movements. 



X Serial number of experiment 
Y Time of tap in thousandths of 



' r \tMr 





350 400 



In this connection it is pertinent to call attention to certain fluctua- 
tions of consciousness which exhibit themselves as changes in the 
intensity, time-rate, and precision of voluntary effort. For example, 
let any one be required to tap a telegraph key continuously and at a 
very rapid rate, the time occupied by each tap will undergo continual 
changes. Fatigue will show itself not so much in the increase of 
time required for each tap as in the increased extent of the fluctua- 
tions. [For a typical record, see the accompanying Fig. 1.] Similar 
fluctuations are observed in dynamograph records. 

The larger fluctuations in the strength of our conscious efforts may 
be regarded in a similar way. We are required to give a series of 
strong grips in quick succession ; they steadily decrease in strength 
until a condition of temporary paralysis sets in ; then follows a partial 
recovery ; then another paralysis ; and so on . To quote from Dr. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 33 

Scripture (The New Psychology, p. 229) : " When the paralysis occurs 
the grip does not sink to zero, but remains at a medium point. Dur- 
ing the whole experiment I conscientiously gripped as hard as possi- 
ble. ... At the points of paralysis I could not even will the grip. 
I felt a complete mental paralysis and did not suppose that I had 
gripped at all. On the other hand, I did not suppose that I had re- 
laxed the grip. A kind of mental daze came over me at the points of 
paralysis." Similar conditions probably occurred in the ergograph 
experiments of Mosso and Lombard, although they were not observed 
and recorded. 

Elementary Self -consciousness. — We cannot speak of de- 
veloped, self-consciousness except as the result of the 
development of all the powers of the mind. For the 
infant there is no "self," and there are no "things," in 
the meanings which both self and things have for the 
adult consciousness. Neither can we admit any so-called 
faculty of self-consciousness as a special work of the mind 
in forming the conception of self, or in attaining the 
higher degrees of self-knowledge. It is the same mind, 
using its same growing powers of discrimination, which 
comes to distinguish things and self, and to acquire, by 
comparison and contrast, its mental images and its con- 
ceptions both of its self and of other selves and of things. 

Our views can be made clearer only as the subjects of attention 
and discrimination are discussed, and as the facts and laws of that 
mental development which ends in the knowledge of Self and the 
knowledge of Things are traced. Obviously, however, consciousness 
and self-consciousness are not the same. When I am looking intently 
through a microscope, or watching some absorbing spectacle, or hear- 
ing interesting music, I am highly conscious — all alive mentally, so 
to speak. But 1 am little, or not at all self-conscious. Neither can 
it be claimed that the tracing of every conscious state, as such, in- 
volves the explicit, or clearly conscious reference of that state to the 
Ego or Self. Certainly, there is in the beginning of the child's 
mental life no mental picture of a Self, and no already formed dis- 
tinction between Self and things. This distinction itself is estab- 
lished, this picture formed, as the result of development. 

Two things must, however, be admitted to be true of even the most 



34 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

rude and inchoate mental life of every human being: (1) A certain 
emotional tinge of the most obtrusive experiences, a coloring from 
self-feeling, so to say, belongs to the simplest beginning of conscious 
states. (2) The stream of consciousness cannot be broken up into 
states, in any such way as to become either the subject of psycho- 
logical investigation or representable in adult consciousness, without 
the " discriminating consciousness " of the subject of these states 
being active. Attention, discrimination, self -feeling — these seem to 
belong to all conscious mental life. 

While we must postpone the fuller account of self-con- 
sciousness until later on, enough has already been said to 
emphasize these important truths : — 

First, That "stream of consciousness," which is but 
the life of the mind beginning and growing in its own 
unique way, is the one source from which we must draw 
our account of all the different conscious processes and of 
the devolopment of all the so-called mental faculties. To 
be conscious is to have psychic life. In the germinal 
psychic life all the elementary forms of psychic function- 
ing are involved, such as attention, discrimination, sensa- 
tion, feeling, conation, ideation. The growth of this life 
into higher forms of activity involves and employs them all. 

But, second, we shall see how the fundamental and all- 
important distinction between my self and not-my-self — 
or "other things " — is the leading feature in the develop- 
ment of the psychic life. The grounds for this distinction 
are found in strongly characterized differences in the 
different conscious states and different elements of con- 
scious states. These differences, however, do not distin- 
guish and segregate themselves, as it were, after the 
manner of atoms in solution, proceeding to crystallize 
according to chemical laws. An active discriminating 
side must be admitted as belonging to all these most 
elementary processes, and an emotional coloring, which 
may be called self-feeling, accompanies the function of 
active discrimination. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 35 

Finally, out of this beginning life of feeling and dis- 
crimination, as it were, and not as something foreign to 
the earlier and simpler conscious states, the most elemen- 
tary self-consciousness emerges. It is accompanied, how- 
ever, from the first by the growth of perceptive conscious- 
ness of things. To trace this complex development is to 
follow, in a historical way, the development of the mind. 
But it requires a further preliminary analysis to describe 
and explain the other particular kinds of elementary con- 
scious processes. 

[Compare Professor James' chapter on " The Stream of Thought" : 
The Principles of Psychology, I, ix ; and Sully : The Human Mind, 
I, p. 72 f. Further special investigators would profit by reading the 
monographs, in German, of Ochorowitz (Bedingungen d. Bewusst- 
werdens, 1874) ; Lipps : Grundthatsachen d. Seelenlebens ; and, more 
recently, of J. C. Fischer, J. L. A. Koch, Schuster, Wahle, and others.] 



CHAPTER III 

ATTENTION AND DISCRIMINATION 

Attention as so-called "Faculty." — Our customary lan- 
guage makes a distinction which all adults readily under- 
stand. This distinction may be emphasized by reflecting 
upon the difference between such words as "hear" and 
"hearken," "see " and "look," etc. The latter of the two 
couples of words (namely, " hearken " and " look ") are used 
in command and exhortation ; they imply an ability on the 
part of the mind to control the conscious processes. 
Hence this ability has sometimes been spoken of by psy- 
chologists as a special faculty. And by the so-called 
" faculty of attention " is then meant a purposeful volition, 
suffused with peculiar feelings of effort or strain, and accom- 
panied by a changed condition of the field of consciousness, 
as respects intensity, content, and clearness. 

Plainly, however, this use of the word attention in- 
cludes the results of the development of several primary 
forms of mental functioning. In attending I am feeling 
somehow, knowing something, and doing somewhat. 
That is, I am conscious in a definite way, and I am hav- 
ing something to say about the way of my being conscious. 
But these assumptions require further examination. 

Attention as Primary and Universal. — The acquirement 
of the faculty to attend, "when and as we will," presup- 
poses attention as a primary and universal phenomenon of 
consciousness. Some, and some kind of, attention belongs 
to every mental state or process. What is ordinarily 
called "mattention" is not the negation of all attention; 
it is rather diminished intensity of attention, or attention 
directed to other objects than those which seem proper 
36 



ATTENTION AND DISCRIMINATION 37 

umder the circumstances. The idle schoolboy is inatten- 
tive to his lessons, because he is attentive to objects out- 
side the window, or to memories of past play-time, or to 
plans for the coming holiday. The foundations of a 
scientific psychology can be laid only if we admit the 
conditions and laws of this universal experience : Primary 
attention is a form of psychical activity ivhich enters into the 
determination of the character of every field of consciousness. 
It is a most general form of all mental life. In the figura- 
tive language of Professor James: "It (the 'stream of 
thought ' = the mind) is always interested more in one 
part of its object than in another, and welcomes and 
rejects, or chooses, all the while it thinks." 

Physiological Conditions of Attention. — The changes 
which go on in the nervous centres, in the so-called psychic 
nerve-cells and nerve-fibres, are very significant in their 
bearing upon the psychological doctrine of attention. In 
diseases of the brain, where there is impaired integrity of 
its substances or an abnormal condition of the blood-supply, 
the sufferer finds it difficult or impossible to control the 
stream of consciousness, as sound men ordinarily do. 
Sometimes so-called "hypertrophy of attention" takes 
place, and one idea, one feeling, one fancy, persistently 
usurps the central part of the field of consciousness. It 
continually forces the attention of the patient upon itself. 
Or, again, there may be impotency to attend with ordinary 
fixity to anything. " The current of ideas is so rapid and 
exuberant that the mind becomes a prey to unbridled 
automatism.'-' The lower animals which have lost impor- 
tant parts of the brain-areas show the effects of this loss 
by changes in the power of attention. The "soul-blind- 
ness" and "soul-deafness" (or seeing and hearing, but 
ivithout interpreting the meaning of what is seen and heard) 
of the dog which has lost part of its cerebral substance is 
partly due to inability to attend to the object of sight or 



38 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

of hearing. Nothing is more distinctive of idiocy or of 
general paralysis than impotency of attention. These 
observations show that attention, or the focusing of psy- 
chical energy, involves increased activity in certain brain- 
centres, — a '•'•focusing'''' of physiological function. 

Attention, which is itself the indispensable prerequisite 
and accompaniment of all mental work, implies work being 
done in the brain. Experiments in reaction-time illus- 
trate this. If the reacting agent is taken "off guard," — ■ 
that is, if his attention is not properly focused when the 
signal is given, — he reacts more slowly and irregularly. 
If he is warned, and so is found "on guard," he reacts 
most promptly and regularly. Promptness and regularity 
in reacting depend upon just the right time (not too little 
or too much) being allowed for the " focusing " of atten- 
tion. Thus Wundt found that when one is warned at 
what instant to expect the sound of a falling ball, the 
time necessary to discern the sound may be reduced from 
253 a- to 76 <r, if the ball falls 25 ctm. ; and from 266 <r to 
175 or, if the ball falls 5 ctm. Another observer (Beaunis) 
found that, as the time of expectation increased from 300 <r 
to 500 a or 600 a, the time of reaction also increased from 
155 o- to 205 o - ; but as the time of expectation increased 
from 600 cr to 4000 a, the time of reaction diminished 
again to 143 o-. Other more accurate and recent experi- 
ments show, however, what a variety of conditions deter- 
mine our promptness and accuracy of attention. 

We all know what profound physiological changes 
accompany the "strain " of attention, and how excessively 
fatiguing prolonged attention is. The character and time- 
rate of the breathing are altered. Sighing, yawning, and 
sweating profusely are frequent results of giving close 
attention. The vaso-motor changes are often especially 
marked, and sometimes the heart almost stops beating. 
Malebranche tells of the effect upon himself of the rapt 



ATTENTION AND DISCRIMINATION 39 

attention he gave to Descartes' treatise Be V Homme. It 
" caused such a violent beating of the heart that from hour 
to hour he was compelled to lay the book aside and break 
off its perusal." 

Nothing can well be of more importance to both student 
and teacher than to know something of the physiological 
and psychological laws of attention. Without "giving" 
attention, successful study is impossible. Without " secur- 
ing " attention, successful teaching is equally impossible. 

Variations of Attention. — It is a common experience that 
attention cannot long be held concentrated, or "focused," 
upon one object with a steady strain. Experiment con- 
firms this experience and points out certain measurements 
for the rise and fall of attention as accompanying all con- 
scious life. This variable character marks all kinds and 
degrees of attention. The rhythmic movement of atten- 
tion may be illustrated in the following, among many, 
ways. If a ticking watch be held at such distance from 
the ear that its sounds can be heard only with a very strict 
attention, some of the successive ticks will drop out of 
consciousness altogether. This is not because the objec- 
tive stimulus varies in intensity, but because the attention 
we are able to give to the sensation varies. Helmholtz 
showed that a black radius on a rotating white disk may 
be made to shorten and lengthen alternately by fixating 
it with a steady attempt at uniform attention. A gray 
disk looked at in this way, when lighted with uniform 
intensity, undergoes changes in its apparent brightness. 
Ebbinghaus, while experimenting to determine how many 
"non-sense syllables " could be learned and remembered 
in series, under different conditions of learning and re- 
membering, discovered periodic oscillations in the mental 
susceptibility to attend. Thus, in 84 experiments with 
six sixteen-syllable series, the mean time required for 
learning was as follows: for the first, 191 sec; for the 



40 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

second, 224 sec. ; for the third, 206 sec. ; for the fourth, 
218 sec. ; for the fifth, 210 sec. ; for the sixth, 213 sec. 

Distribution of Attention. — In the periodic variations of 
attention under conditions like those just described, what 
happens between two maxima of intensity is not a com- 
plete loss of consciousness. It is often rather a wandering 
of a certain amount of psychic energy to some other object 
in the field of consciousness. In general, the arising of 
any new factor or object in consciousness takes place only in 
connection with a redistribution of attention. Both the 
"focusing" of attention and the "distraction" of atten- 
tion are instances under the general principles of the dis- 
tribution of attention. Suppose, for example, that, in 
order to test the disturbance of attention, we experiment 
first, with a series of simple muscular reactions in response 
to a stimulus of light; second, with the same reactions 
while a weak reflected light flickers across the visual field ; 
third, when the person "reacting is further distracted by 
the image of a revolving card. The average times of reac- 
tion for the three series are, — for the first series, 140 cr; 
for the second, 148 cr ; for the third, 139 cr. Evidently, 
however, in these results a number of influences besides 
the distracting sensation are present. 

Binet attempted the same problem, by noticing the effect 
of "doing a sum," or "reading aloud," etc., upon a person 
who is trying to press a tube a certain number of times, 
once in so often, and with a uniform pressure. These 
distractions produced (1) irregularity of interval in the 
motor discharges; (2) diminution or slower rise of the 
curve of pressure; (3) incoordination of movement; 
(4) dropping of some of the volitional acts out of con- 
sciousness. 

The " mechanism " of some of the more important characteristics 
of attention, as varying in "focus" and "distribution" and as deter- 
mining the presence in consciousness of the "associated factors," may 



ATTENTION AND DISCRIMINATION 41 

be illustrated by the following diagram and its accompanying ex- 
planation. 

Let the "stream of consciousness," in relation to time, intensity, 
and extent (see p. 31 f.) be represented by the three dimensions of the 
solid figure : viz., the time by the length, the intensity by the height, 
and the extent at any moment by a cross-section (as, for example, at 
q, r, s, or t). Fluctuations in intensity and extent will then be illus- 
trated by variations in the height and breadth of the figure. Thus 
at q is one maximum of conscious intensity; at r a minimum; and then 
a rapid rise to another maximum at s. The extent of the conscious 
stream, or the number of ideas grasped together at any given moment, 
varies inversely as the intensity of attention to any one idea or set 
of ideas. This may be illustrated by the assumed contraction and 
expansion of the sides of the figure. But if the amount of psychic 
energy be supposed to remain constant, the areas of the cross-sections 



remain equal ; and then the increase of attention to one group of 
withdraws attention from the others (the apex of the solid rises, and 
the base contracts). 

The rise and fall of ideas in the stream of consciousness under the 
influence of the redistribution of attention may now be illustrated by 
the changes in position of the ideas a, b, c, d. At one moment (q) 
the idea a is raised to the apex by attention, while b sinks under 
relative neglect. But at the next moment (r), by having "attracted" 
attention, b has become prominent. And now, just before this same 
moment (r), on account of some internal or external association, c 
enters consciousness, and at another moment (s) has become the rul- 
ing idea, bringing with it another new idea, d, and fusing with d and 
with b, so as to absorb almost the entire amount of conscious interest 
and attention. Now b soon drops out, and c and d enter into new 
associations. 

Relation of Attention to Feeling. — The focusing of atten- 
tion and its constant redistribution changes the character 



42 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

of conscious states in every fundamental aspect of such 
states. But the general fact is especially obvious as con- 
nected with changes in the emotional aspect, with what 
we call " our feelings. " The power which different objects 
of sense or different ideas possess to get for themselves 
attention in that "struggle for existence" which takes 
place in the stream of consciousness is popularly summed 
up in one word. That word is "interest." But to be 
interested in any object or idea is mainly to have toward 
it a certain attitude of feeling. What is interesting 
excites our feelings ; what excites our feelings is attended 
to as interesting. So true is this that one psychologist 
(Stumpf) exaggerates the connection between the two 
and declares : " Attention is identical with interest, and 
interest is a feeling." 

The forms of feeling connoted by the one term " inter- 
est," and in this way marked by their close relation to 
the distribution of attention, are exceedingly diverse. 
The "horrible," "disgusting," or "repulsive," has for 
many minds even more fascination than the "pleasant," 
"agreeable," or "attractive." Thus the same object, 
which is most repulsive on account of the character of 
feeling which it arouses, may be very attractive on account 
of its power to awaken interest and so to fixate attention. 
A group of children transfixed with interest in some ter- 
rifying spectacle, the novel-reader unable to tear herself 
away from the harrowing tale, the historical narrative 
which is read without weariness or note of passing time, 
because of the horrors with which it deals, are illustra- 
tions in place here. Extremes of similar character are 
familiar to students of the psychology of certain types of 
insanity or hypnosis. The inability to detach the atten- 
tion from various objects of supreme interest may, in such 
cases, be truthfully described either as an affliction of 
"morbid emotions " or as a " disease of will." From what- 



ATTENTION AND DISCRIMINATION 43 

ever point of view looked at, these and similar psychoses 
illustrate the relation of attention to all those forms of 
feeling which are described by the general term interest. 

More particularly, the distribution of attention among the objects 
and ideas in any field of consciousness is dependent upon variations 
in feeling as respects, (1) novelty, (2) intensity, (3) tone of pleasure 
or pain, and (4) freshness or exhaustion. All feelings are in them- 
selves interesting; and the most loathsome and unbearable of all 
emotional conditions is that dull monotone into which no changes of 
feeling break. Other things being equal, the novel sensation, or idea, 
or proposal, is easiest attended to, because most interesting. Indeed, 
the interest of novelty is often supreme in the control of the distribu- 
tion of attention. Intensity of feeling, within certain limits, compels 
attention. But when the disturbance of emotional consciousness 
reaches a certain height, — as when storms of anger, grief, or terror 
possess the mind, — attention may become lowered to the blindly- 
groping animal type. The tone of pleasure or pain influences the 
attention in its distribution, within the field of consciousness. Objects 
or ideas that excite either pleasurable or painful feeling attract our 
attention away from those that have a more neutral tone. On the 
other hand, for the self -con trolled adult the voluntary yielding or 
withdrawing of attention increases or diminishes the amount of pleas- 
urable or painful feeling. We tell even small children, not to "mind" 
their bruises and they will not feel them. The philosopher Kant 
trained himself not to pay attention to the pain in his chest, although 
whenever he allowed himself to think of it, he found it always there. 
Hypnotic subjects feel only the pains which it is suggested they shall 
feel. Here the distribution of attention under the control of the 
experimenter either submerges or emphasizes the tone of feeling 
belonging to the different perceptions and ideas. "Freshness " and 
"exhaustion" are popular terms which describe how the repeated 
focusing of attention may stand related to emotional excitements. 
These characteristics of our feeling are intimately connected with the 
changes in interest and attention which novelty and intensity control. 

Relation of Attention to Willing. — The inattentive mind 
is habitually the unwilling mind, — toward the same ob- 
jects, ideas, or plans. And, indeed, attention seems to 
imply, even in its lowest form, a certain amount and kind 
of willing. From the most fundamental point of view, 



44 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

all psychic energy is self-activity ; it appears in conscious- 
ness as the energizing, the conation, the striving, of the 
same being which comes to look upon itself as " attracted " 
to discriminate this object from that, or as "solicited" to 
consider some pleasant thought, or as "compelled" to feel 
some bodily pain. Even when attention is most plainly 
forced, we cannot wholly neglect this aspect of it as active 
consciousness. It is still my attention; J yield to the 
impulse; /submit to the force. When the physiologist 
Foster speaks of an amoeba as having "a will of its own," 
he probably does not mean to indicate anything psycho- 
logical by his words. But the researches of Binet and 
others into the "psychic life of micro-organisms " suggest 
that something similar to primary attention, as a selective 
function of will, may take place even with them. At any 
rate, in man's case, the truth is clear: Attention which* in 
its higher stages of growth, mag reach the conditions neces- 
sary to intelligent, purposeful choice, is present as a blind 
striving and selective, but self-originating, activity in all the 
lower forms of man's conscious life. 

Relation of Attention to Sensations and Thoughts. — The 
effect of attention upon the discriminating and reflecting 
powers of the mind is most immediate. In all our daily 
waking life there are scores of obscure sensations just 
lurking at the threshold of consciousness, which may be 
definitely localized and made relatively vivid and im- 
pressive, if we will only attend to them. Stop now and 
attend to the "feelings " in the different members of your 
body. Such a voluntary survey of the external areas of 
the body brings out in bold relief a tangle of temperature, 
pressure, and muscular sensations ; and this effect takes 
place in any of the bodily superficies chosen for the survey. 
Indeed, he who has not tried this experiment with persis- 
tent attention, does not know how inchoate and confused 
some of these sensational experiences customarily are. 



ATTENTION AND DISCRIMINATION 45 

Attention not only intensifies sensations; it actually 
creates them. Experiment has shown that most persons 
who are attentively expecting, for example, a wire to be 
heated, or a glass bead to appear at a certain distance, feel 
and see what they attentively expect, even when the 
objective stimulus is wanting. 

Repeated acts of attention directed upon the same sen- 
sory objects heighten the effects of discrimination in 
enlarging and "clarifying" the contents of the field of 
consciousness. If a disk with differently colored spots 
or different letters on its surface be displayed for a brief 
time, the most fixed attention will at first enable only 
from three to six of these objects to be discerned. By 
repeatedly attending to this field, a larger number of 
Objects will be seen (not simply remembered) after the 
display of the disk for the same length of time. 

We thus reach a partial explanation of what is called " attention 
as adjustment," or " expectant attention." In truth, every more clearly 
discriminating act of attending implies some attentive discrimination 
already exercised upon the same object. To state the fact as a para- 
dox": No special attention without previous attention. Thus we see 
best what the bodily and mental mechanism is already best adjusted 
to see, what we expect to see. And the case is the same with hearing 
and with our other senses. Moreover, the training of every mind 
determines largely the particular features of any object to which 
attention shall be given ; as well as the speed and accuracy of the 
resulting discriminations. The Greek scholar who is accustomed to 
dwell upon the minutiae of words detects the missing or wrong accent. 
The man interested in wood-craft notes the flight and the peculiar 
feathering of the birds, the mottling of the bark, the chirping of the 
insects — things unseen and unheard by other eyes and ears. As 
Professor Munsterberg has pointed out : The clear mental representa- 
tion in consciousness of a is preceded by another condition of con- 
sciousness which, according to its content, contains the less clear 
mental representation of a. It is as though in every field of conscious- 
ness a great variety of sensations and ideas were possible claimants 
for the available psychic energy ; a sort of preliminary survey enables 
us to select such of them as best suit our tastes, or our present pur- 



46 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

pose, and upon these we bestow the preference in the further distribu- 
tion of that energy. 

In brief : I attend in some degree to every content of con- 
sciousness, and I have the better grasp of consciousness upon 
every content to which I give much attention. Only if this 
be so, can I learn to select within limits that to which I will 
particularly attend, and really grasp mentally that to which 
I choose to attend. Sully is in the right when he responds 
to Stumpf's claim that it is improper to speak of one 
"attending" to a box on the ear: "One would like to 
know the fortunate man who could receive a box on the 
ear, and not attend to it." What, indeed, should we say- 
to such a man the better to express his mental peculiarity 
than this: "You do not seem to mind such trifles much." 

Attention as Fundamental in Intellectual Life. — -We are 
now prepared for a clearer notion of the beginnings of a 
truly intellectual development. For centuries it has been 
held that "analysis " and "synthesis " are necessary to the 
evolution of human intelligence. We now see that all 
attention, considered as variously distributed degrees of 
discriminating consciousness, implies this fundamental 
process of analysis. Attention is a process of selective 
focusing of psychic energy. This is the primary condition 
of all intelligence. " Human " intelligence is character- 
ized by the relatively unlimited character of the develop- 
ment of this process, as well as by the great variety and 
range of objects upon which it can be directed, on account 
of the infinitely richer experience of man as compared with 
the lower animals. 

Kinds of Attention. — Two kinds of attention may be recog- 
nized: (1) forced attention and (2) voluntary attention. 
In the earlier movements of discriminating consciousness 
its direction and distribution are not voluntary, in the 
fuller meaning of this word. The rather does the dis- 
crimination seem "solicited," " impelled," or "forced." In 



ATTENTION AND DISCRIMINATION 47 

the later and more highly finished processes of the mental 
life, there is much attention which continues to bear the 
same character ; it — the object — controls our discriminat- 
ing and selective consciousness rather than we control 
ourselves. The further discussion of this difference 
requires that it should be preceded by some examination 
of the conative aspect of mental life. 

The neglect to recognize the universal and elementary character of 
attention, and imperfections in the dependent doctrine of discrimi- 
nating consciousness (or " primary intellection ") have led many psy- 
chologists into serious errors. The psychologists of the English 
empiricist School, such as Locke, Hume, Hartley, the Mills, and even 
Herbert Spencer, have, in general, almost entirely neglected these 
patent phenomena of all conscious life ; they have, therefore, almost 
wholly misconceived the nature and the explanation of human, and 
even of animal intelligence. Their successors in this country to-day 
are suffering much from the same narrowness. According to Pro- 
fessor James, the failure to notice " so patent a fact as the perpetual 
presence of selective attention " is due to the unwillingness to attempt 
a problem whose solution would so obviously interfere with "the 
smoothness of their tale." However this may be, any psychological 
theory, and even any descriptive history of mental development, 
which lays all the emphasis on sensations and ideas as content of a 
passive consciousness, and which overlooks the all-pervasive and dom- 
inant fact of an active and discriminating and selective psychic energy, 
is doomed to failure. (Comp. p. 22 f .) The impressive thing about the 
mental life of man, the thing that carries with it the seductions of 
mystery and sounds the inspiring call to renewed effort at research, 
is just this marvellous psychic energy. " Receiving impressions " to 
all eternity would never result in developing what we call "Mind." 
The active response, the forthputting of the mind's own powers ac- 
cording to its own constitution, is the prominent and the really 
impressive thing for the psychologist. 

Of the English psychologists, Ward and Sully have been among 
the first clearly to recognize the true psychological import of atten- 
tion. They have been followed by Mr. Stout, who devotes most 
of his two volumes on " Analytic Psychology " to the speculative 
treatment of this problem. Ward holds that "the relation of pres- 
entation itself implies what, for want of a better word, may be 
called attention, extending the denotation of this term so as to include 



48 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

what we ordinarily call inattention. Attention, so used, will thus 
cover part of what is meant by consciousness — so much of it, that is, 
as answers to being mentally active, active enough, at least, to receive 
impressions." The truth that inattention is still attention is expressed 
in popular language when we say: "Are you attending strictly to 
me, or to it — to this thing, to the exclusion of that ? " 

Nature of Primary Intellection. — We have frequently 
used, in a varietjr of connections, the term " discriminating 
consciousness." Regarded as an activity, such conscious 
procedure accomplishes the elaboration of all materials, 
the organization of all mental processes and forces, the 
development of the whole life of the mind. Even to speak 
of a "state of consciousness" or "circuit of conscious- 
ness " is absurd, if the influence of such discriminating 
activity is excluded. 

But we have just seen that the doctrine of the focusing 
and distributing of attention is inseparably connected with 
the same fundamental experiences. The wandering of 
attention, the concentration of attention, the selective 
influence of attention, furnish topics which cannot be 
investigated without constant consideration of this same 
activity in discrimination. Indeed, the very nature of all 
consciousness enforces the same set of truths; for con- 
sciousness regarded as objectively discriminated and as hav- 
ing a certain concrete content, and consciousness regarded as 
discriminating activity, are only two sides, as it were, of one 
and the same consciousness. In other words, to be " really 
in" a certain conscious state of impression — by some 
object or idea — and to be "doing something" by way of 
discerning the nature of the impression — of the object or 
the idea — are complementary of each other. 

All this may be described as being alive and develop- 
ing, as an intelligent being is alive and develops. Such 
is the nature of what we shall call "primary intellection." 
But the term requires some further explanation. 



PEIMARY INTELLECTION 49 

Physiological Conditions of Primary Intellection. — The 
lowest order of dawning intelligence implies the bringing 
of two or more sensations, feelings, or ideas, into the unity 
of consciousness and the dealing with them there, as it 
were, according to relations of similarity or difference 
consciously discerned. Although we are ignorant of those 
precise conditions of the brain-centres which are involved 
in this complex mental activity, we are justified in hold- 
ing some such general view as follows : To the complex- 
ity and elaborateness of the processes involved on the psy- 
chical side some correspondingly complex and elaborate 
brain-processes stand related. 

The human brain is a kind of physical unity, and yet 
it has a great variety of different "centres" so-called, 
which bear special relations to the different primary pro- 
cesses of consciousness. These centres are united by 
"association-tracts"; and the impeding or destroying of 
these tracts has an important influence over the collective 
or allied functions of the centres themselves. Thus the 
animal which has suffered injury of its visual centres, 
or of the nerve-tracts associating them, may still be capa- 
ble of visual sensations-, but the intellectual quality of 
the sensations, as dependent upon active discrimination 
and psychical association, is relatively lost. Hence the 
soul-blindness to which reference has already (p. 37 f.) 
been made. In certain forms of aphasia, too, the human 
patient may be able to hear all manner of sounds, but the 
sounds lack their former sense (or intellectual quality) 
and can no longer be heard as words, in the fuller meaning 
of the term. 

The complexity of the physiological processes which accompany 
even the more primary intellectual activities, and the necessity that 
these processes should spread over the appropriate centres, by way of 
the "association-tracts," is illustrated in another manner. We have 
already seen that attention, with discrimination, requires prolonged 



50 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

reaction-time. For example, while the time for simple reaction may 
be only from 100 o- to 200 a, counting single letters requires 317 cr-530 a ; 
but counting letters by threes can be done in 209 cr-liO cr, while adding 
pairs of numbers requires 754 o--1533 o\ This time, on the physiological 
side, is undoubtedly occupied with the spreading and maturing of the 
processes, necessary to discrimination, in the brain. 

It is scarcely desirable in this place to do more than 
remark upon the truth which all psychology emphasizes ; 
namely, that, while the psychical activities are dependent 
upon the completion of certain physiological processes, 
they cannot themselves be regarded as other than genuine 
psychical activities. 

Consciousness of Resemblance. — A further analysis of 
that complex activity called attentive and discriminating 
consciousness shows that it has several "moments," or 
possible aspects. Of these, one of the most significant 
and fundamental may be described as "consciousness of 
resemblance." An examination of experience, from the 
psychologist's point of view, shows that the immediate 
awareness of resemblance is a primary and a constant form 
of intellection, which is necessary for the beginnings and for 
all the development of a tridy mental life. 

Resembling Consciousnesses not Consciousness of Resemblance. 
— That form of psychological theory which studies con- 
sciousness only "content-wise," and assumes that some- 
how sensations and ideas organize themselves, makes an 
important mistake at this point. It confuses two re- 
sembling conscious states with the state of being con- 
scious of a resemblance. But the consciousness of 
resemblance is always an intellectual activity. It is 
something new as compared with the mere existence of 
resembling sensations or ideas or other conscious states. 
This is true of the simplest mental experiences. The 
sensation of blue is different from the sensation of red, 
but the sensation called up by this red-covered book 



PRIMAKY INTELLECTION 51 

resembles that called up by yonder sunset cloud. And 
each tick of the clock to which I am listening resembles 
the other ticks of the same clock. The immediately suc- 
cessive ticks may differ, as they seem to me to sound 
(perhaps depending partly, as we have already seen, on 
the rhythm of attention — tick-tack, tick-tack, etc., rather 
than the monotonous, tick, tick, tick). But in all these 
experiences, and in all other similar experiences, when 
we have noted that the sensations are different, we have 
not explained how they come to seem different. In psy- 
chology, the "seeming " of sensations is their real "being." 
A "noticing" or "becoming aware of" the likeness is 
necessary to the existence in consciousness of the like- 
ness. And this noticing, as a consciousness, is not ac- 
counted for by the fact or the theory of an objective or 
non-conscious likeness. 

In general, consciousnesses that resemble each other cannot 
— simply by being brought into juxtaposition or being com- 
pounded — account for the consciousness of resemblance. 

Consciousness of Difference. — Psychologists have debated 
much over the priority of these two allied forms of primary 
intellection, — 'the consciousness of resemblance and the 
consciousness of difference. A great amount of ingenuity 
has been exercised in trying to describe the character of 
the earliest known object (primum cognituni). From our 
adult point of view we cannot 'even imagine any knowledge 
without both kinds of discrimination taking place. Both 
the immediate awareness of resemblance, and the almost 
or quite equally immediate awareness of difference, seem 
necessary in order to start all our intellectual development. 
And, as we shall see later, the primary forms of analysis 
and synthesis are involved from the first. At the same 
time, as regards theoretical priority, the consciousness of 
resemblance and the consciousness of difference do not 
appear to stand in precisely the same relations to the very 



52 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

beginnings of intellectual life. The grasp of active, dis- 
criminating consciousness upon the similar, and the ac- 
companying pleasurable feeling of recognition, may 
perhaps be regarded as the more fundamental in the 
evolution of intellect. 

Precision and maturity of intellect, however, depend 
upon constant and prolonged attention to differences in 
external objects and in ideas. Mistakes in hasty assimi- 
lation of objects that are really unlike, and the painful 
experiences which follow such mistakes, compel us to 
attend more carefully and to discriminate, in the inter- 
ests of our practical ends, the important differences of 
things. Science is interested in discovering the obscurer 
and minuter, but often more enduring, differences. 

Growth of Primary Intellection. — The intellectual pro- 
cesses of the infant are undoubtedly very vague, uncertain, 
and fitful. In its night, or rather its early dawn, all cats 
are alike, for all are gray. The more interesting similari- 
ties of the objects of its attention — attention which is 
chiefly allured or forced by the working of the psycho- 
physical mechanism — are noted " in the lump," as it were, 
and more than half in a blind, instinctive way. A vague 
consciousness of similarity, without an awareness as to 
similar-in-ivhat-respect, may well describe this earlier form 
of discrimination. Such a conscious state may also be 
spoken of as a "feeling of likeness," rather than a clear 
discrimination of likenesses. Even in our adult life we 
have frequent experiences which help us to picture the 
beginnings of intellectual life. We wake up a little way 
from dozing, or from a day-dream, and describe our con- 
scious state by asking: "Did I not hear something like — 
a sigh, the rustle of a dress, the dropping of the eaves ? " 
or, "Did I not see something like — a bird, a man, pass 
before the window?" 

In awakening and guiding the most elementary forms 



PRIMARY INTELLECTION 53 

of the consciousness of resemblance nothing is more effec- 
tive than a rhythmic repetition of pleasant sensations. 
Here everything is favorable to stirring the consciousness 
of the infant to an act of simple discernment and to a 
recognition of resemblance. The nurse croons over it, 
rocking it in her arms ; the bright toy or the lighted 
candle moves to and fro before its eyes; or it is patted 
or stroked to soothe it. Again and yet again the same 
sweet experience is noted in the stream of conscious 
states. How can the sensitive soul of the child fail to 
be allured into an improvement of the opportunity to 
grasp the simple but important fact, that A, A v A v A s , 
etc., although succeeding in time, are similar states of 
consciousness as respects the content of sensation, the 
tone of feeling evoked, and the motor activities engaged? 

On the contrary, it is customarily some abrupt change 
in the content of the stream of consciousness, and some 
accompanying shock of painful feeling, which stimulates 
the consciousness of difference. The cup of milk which 
is not warmed or sweetened to the customary standard 
forces the mind to discern wherein it does not suit, as its 
predecessors have, the infant's taste. The shock of dis- 
appointment, the inhibition of the smooth recurring of the 
psychic mechanism, the reversal of what appears entitled 
to be felt as customary and according to law, are educators 
in the distinguishing of differences. Life and comfort 
depend upon making distinctions ; this is true of every 
species of animals. The sharpening of intellect comes, 
in man's ca&e, by way of learning that things are not what 
they at first seem to be. A hasty identification on the 
basis of obtrusive similarities costs us the loss of many a 
success which might otherwise have been obtained. 

Varying Amounts of Intellection. — It is customary to 
measure intellectual processes and attainments as though 
they were quantities which could be brought into com- 



54 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

parison through some standard. Thus, men speak of 
" great " and " small " intellects, of " strong " and " feeble " 
faculties of thought, of "contracted" and "capacious" 
minds. We admire others when we see them doing with 
readiness, ease, and precision things which we can do only 
slowly, painfully, and imperfectly, if at all. We incline 
to attribute to such men superior mental attainments, and 
to accuse ourselves of being deficient in intellectual gifts. 
There may be, however, a fundamental fallacy in this. 
For there are not a few performances which simulate a 
high degree of genuinely intellectual development but do 
not really involve any genuine intellectual processes at 
all. The purposeful action of a natural mechanism, like 
the spinal cord of a decapitated frog or the apparatus for 
scattering the seed of some plants, may seem to be a very 
intelligent affair. The lower animals, generally, behave 
in some respects as .though they were the intellectual 
superiors of Aristotle or Kant. In some other respects 
they also behave as though they had a keener and more 
refined sense of beauty than Raphael or Tintoretto. 

In this connection we must emphasize again the psychological 
truth : Genuine " intellection" even of the most rudimentary sort, implies 
the consciousness of resemblance and the consciousness of differences, and 
the selective and purposeful directing of psychic energy in focusing and 
distributing attention. Thus the susceptibility to minute likenesses 
and minute differences by way of merely "feeling," or "sensing" 
them, " in the lump," as it were, is a precondition of intelligence. 
It is a constant accompaniment of the development of intellect. 
But it does not of itself mark a high degree of intellect; nor is it 
the measure of intellectual advance. This will be better understood 
when we have discussed the development of the intellect, under the 
categories of time, number, etc. Here it is enough to note that, for 
example, Binet's experiments proved a child of from four to six years 
old able promptly to distinguish the difference between a group of 
14, 15, or 16 objects and a group of 18 objects. The same child could 
tell 17 from 18 objects eight times out of nine trials ; but it could not 
count beyond three, and it pronounced 10 large objects "more" than 



PRIMARY INTELLECTION 55 

18 small ones. Preyer has shown that one can train one's self to 
discriminate accurately up to 20 or even 30 objects, when they are 
exposed far too briefly to admit of being counted. The shrewd crow 
of which Romanes tells us, who seemed able to discern the difference 
between five men and six men, neither counted nor performed any 
other highly intellectual process. 

Primary Intellection and the Other Faculties. — The analy- 
sis of attentive and discriminating consciousness has 
shown us how complex and interrelated are all, even the 
most elementary processes of the truly mental life. If 
this analysis is carried still further, it will be seen that 
some kind of memory and of ideating has been implied in 
what has already been said. For no field of consciousness, 
or conscious state, is wholly stationary; and sensations, 
or objects, or thoughts, do not exist or abide in the stream 
of consciousness, as the elements of some material com- 
posite thing remain a part of that thing. Therefore, for 
the discernment of likeness or unlikeness — and this has 
been found to be fundamental in intellectual development 
— some form of representation is necessary. It will appear 
that the ability to compare depends upon the ability to 
recall, to do what has been aptly called "hark back" in 
the stream of consciousness, and so get a clearer " idea " 
of what the particular object was. Experiment shows that 
if we are allowed time to do this, and so "to get an idea " 
of what we just saw or heard or tasted, — our discernment 
of likenesses and unlikenesses is improved. In picking 
out blocks, for example, which are of the same weight, or 
which differ from each other by a fixed amount of differ- 
ence, we instinctively lift both the weights to be compared 
and the standard weight again and again. We are thus 
clearing up and deepening our " ideas " of the things to 
be compared. But this is an intellectual process. 

Indeed, our very poiver to constitute the different mental 
factors into the unity of one state, into a system of related 



56 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

objects, whether similar or different in quantity, quality, and 
local coloring, is dependent upon the influence of ideas. But 
in saying this we have brought this subject as far along 
in discussion as is profitable until we have had time to 
discuss other subjects. 

Attention may profitably be called again to the mischievous result 
of an attempt to reduce the entire science of mental life to an account 
of the receiving and association of sensations, and of those revived 
images of sensations called "ideas." The confessed meagreness of 
this theory Mr. Spencer has tried to supplement by speaking of a 
peculiar sort of " feeling " interpolated between the two suggested 
sensations or ideas. Thus the whole mental life of man is to be ac- 
counted for as a succession of " agglutinated " and " agglomerated " 
sensations and ideas, with " feelings of relation " thrown in between 
them. 

The influence of feeling as stimulus and guide in the formative 
period of the intellectual life cannot be denied. Its important influ- 
ence is, indeed, evident all the way through, and in every process from 
lowest to highest. But just as little, and even less, can the fact of an 
active discriminating mind be denied, — of a consciousness of resem- 
blances and differences, a selective and preferential exercise of psychic 
energy, in the interest of growing powers of cognition and of motion. 
"Mind" — in that sense of the word in which we are conscious of 
being minds — cannot be built out of sensations and ideas that either 
get " fused " and " agglutinated " and " associated," or fuse, agglu- 
tinate, and associate themselves. 

The considerations of this chapter may serve to warn 
the psychologist against two extreme views. One of these 
is the view which disregards the presence of active intel- 
lect from the very beginnings of all truly mental life, and 
which explains the development of this life as a mere 
growth in complexity of the contents of consciousness, 
considered as impressions or passive states. The other 
is the view which regards the mind as some sort of an 
unknown or concealed entity, which has characteristics 
that are never displayed in the conscious processes, — a 
being which may properly be regarded as existing over or 
beneath or outside of its own conscious processes. 



PRIMARY INTELLECTION 57 

Both these views are unpsychological. The former, 
because it contradicts many plain psychic facts ; the latter, 
because it departs in its speculations from the basis of 
indisputable psychic facts. 

[On Attention compare Sully : The Human Mind, I, chap, vi ; 
James: The Principles of Psychology, I, chap, xi; and Kiilpe : Out- 
lines of Psychology, Part III, §§ 72-76. Among monographs on the 
subject may be mentioned, Ribot : La Psychologie de 1' Attention ; 
G-. E. Miiller, Zur Theorie d. sinnlichen Aufmerksamkeit ; and 
Dohrn : Das Problem d. Aufmerksamkeit. What has been called 
in this chapter " Primary Intellection " is a subject far too little 
treated of in most works on Psychology. Compare, however, James : 
The Principles of Psychology, I, chap, xii and xiii. Wundt : Logik, I, 
pt. i, chap, ii; Binet : La Psychologie du Raisonnement ; and Preyer : 
The Development of the Intellect, are also to be recommended for 
more extended study of the subject.] 



CHAPTER IV 

SENS A TION 

Important psychological errors need to be further guarded 
against at this point. In psychology, as has already been 
explained, such terms as "elements" and "factors" of 
consciousness, or the "fusion" and "analysis" of factors 
in the elaboration and development of mental life, are 
figurative. They are designed to emphasize the complex 
content of the conscious states and the nature of that 
increase in richness and effectiveness which is shown by 
succeeding portions of the "stream of consciousness." 
This explanation should be borne in mind when these 
terms are applied to sensations and to the development 
of the life of sensation. 

Nature of Sensation. — It has also been shown that every 
conscious state has its active aspect. (See again p. 22 f.) 
To be conscious implies the doing of something by the 
mind ; it is to be attentive and discriminating, and these 
are forms of directing and selective energizing. But sen- 
sations appear as peculiarly passive modifications of con- 
sciousness. Hence they are spoken of as "impressions"; 
the word correctly represents one important side of sensory 
experience and of a valid theory of sensation. For that 
very reason it is well to remember that even this most 
passive experience is characterized by attention and dis- 
crimination. Therefore sensations may always be spoken 
of as conscious processes or forms of the forthputting of 
mind, and not merely as passive elements or inert factors 
of mental life. 

Combining the two previous considerations, we arrive 
58 



NATURE OF SENSATION 59 

at a more complete conception of the nature of sensation. 
First, every sensation is always a psychic affair. Sensa- 
tions, of every description and degree of intensity, are, 
for the psychologist, modifications of the stream of con- 
sciousness. They neither are, nor are like, any external 
stimulus or resulting nerve-commotion. They cannot be 
spoken of as propagated from the skin or the eye to the 
brain, or as compounded and "elaborated" in the brain. 
Second, sensations, although they are psychic events, 
under all normal conditions require the antecedents of a 
nervous excitement that is due to external stimuli. They 
imply, in respect of their physical antecedents, some action 
of things upon the peripheral parts of the nervous system 
(the so-called "end-organs of sense"). Third, although 
sensations can never be identified by the psychologist with 
the properties and doings of things, they are those modi- 
fications of consciousness, those forms of the reaction of 
mind to external stimuli, by means of which we gain the 
cognition of things. To a mind without sensory experi- 
ence, even if such a mind could be conceived of, there 
would come no dawning and no developing conscious- 
ness of an external world. At the same time, fourth, 
mere sense, if we are to speak in that way, would give 
no knowledge of things. This will become more appar- 
ent as the development of perception is studied. But it 
follows from the truth that attention and discrimination 
belong to the very beginnings of our sensory experience ; 
its forms of mental functioning are something more and 
other than the mere having of sensations. 

In a preliminary way, then, we may define sensation as 
that peculiar modification of consciousness (or conscious pro- 
cess) which customarily occurs when some organ of sense is 
excited by external stimidi. If, however, we look forward 
and descry the relation which this elementary conscious 
process sustains to the knowledge of things, we may say: 



60 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Sensations are those peculiar modifications of our conscious- 
ness by which the nature of sensible objects is made known 
to us. 

Nothing can well be more absurd, from the point of view to which 
the psychologist must remain faithful, than to follow those who, like 
Claude Bernard and Lewes, speak of the contraction of living tissue 
as a "sentient" process; or who, like Comte and Dr. Maudsley 
identify physiology and psychology, and subordinate the latter to the 
former. The same criticism applies with almost equal force to those 
who follow Mr. Spencer in describing the origin, fusion, and develop- 
ment of our sensations, as the aggregation and agglomeration of 
simple "nervous shocks." But, on the other hand, it can be satis- 
factorily shown that almost the entire science of so-called "physi- 
ology," in its treatment of the organism of sense-perception, is really 
"psychology " and, sometimes, meagre and poor psychology. It should 
never, for a moment, be forgotten that sensations are phenomena of 
consciousness ; and that they are, as Horwicz says, "no mere passivity, 
but a reacting impulse." Even to speak of them as " an arousement 
of the Psyche " is much nearer the undoubted truth than to speak of 
them in terms of nervous shocks. The recognized physiological use 
of the word "sensitiveness" to mean the ability of organic tissue to 
respond to irritation is not in question here. 

Physiological Conditions of Sensation. — At the same time, 
it is through the study of the origin and development of 
our sensory experience that psychology receives most 
assistance from physics and physiology. So true is this 
that, in treating of the entire doctrine of sensation, we 
shall constantly appeal to the explanations which these 
allied sciences offer, especially to experimental psychology. 

In general, the physiological conditions of sensation are 
the following: (1) An end-organ which has (a) such a 
physical constitution as enables it to modify and transmit 
some particular kind of physical energy (light, sound, 
heat, mechanical pressure, chemical changes), and (5) a 
histological structure capable of changing the modified 
physical energy into a physiological process or nerve- 
commotion. (2) The nerve-commotion set up in the 



NATUKE OF SENSATION 61 

truly nervous elements of the end-organs of sense must 
be conveyed to the central organs along more or less 
clearly marked lines of conduction, called nerve-tracts. 
(3) Important modifications of these propagated nerve-com- 
motions (such as may be somewhat vaguely described under 
such terms as "elaboration," "inhibition," "fusion," "ad- 
justment," "association," etc.) take place when the nerve- 
commotions reach the peculiar histological structures of 
the central organs (especially the brain) and call out their 
physiological 1 functions. 

In all ordinary cases, it is only when the foregoing 
physiological conditions have been fulfilled that sensa- 
tions arise in consciousness. And the quality, quantity, 
complex character, tone of feeling, time-rate, and changes 
of the sensations in the stream of consciousness depend 
upon the way that these physiological conditions are ful- 
filled. 

It should be understood, at least in a preliminary way, that differ- 
ent sensations stand in different relations to the physical organism 
and to the development of sensation-experience. The tactual and, 
perhaps, the muscular sensations are fundamental and universal. 
Biology makes important use of this fact in its account of the evolu- 
tion of animal species. Some kind of sensitive integument which is 
responsive to these forms of stimulation belongs to the lower forms of 
animal life. The human embryo probably begins its sense-experience 
with tactual and muscular sensations only. In all highly organized 
animals the outer integument, and the organs of sense it contains, 
develop from the same embryonic layer (" Epiblast ") from which 
come the central organs of the nervous system. 

Kinds of Sensation. — The popular classification into the 
five senses of smell, taste, hearing, sight, and touch is 
based upon the more obvious parts of the body, through 
the excitement of which these kinds of sensation come. 

1 For further details under this and the following sections, the pupil 
should consult the author's Elements of Physiological Psychology or his 
Outlines of Physiological Psychology ; or some similar treatise. 



62 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

It is by no means complete. In any attempt at classifi- 
cation several truths of common experience, as well as 
certain more scientific considerations, need to be kept in 
mind. First: all the sensory experiences of our daily life 
are complex; they result from the combined activity of 
several organs and may be described as fusions of dif- 
ferent simple sensations or kinds of sensations. Second, 
our experience is not of sensations, "as such "; it is rather 
a knowledge of things through the senses. Third, the 
variety of the less complex sensory processes into which 
the analysis of the psychologist breaks up this sensory 
experience is bewilderingly great. And, fourth: there is, 
at the last, no satisfactory way of classifying sensations 
but to appeal to experience in connection with the use of 
the different organs of sense. The results of science, then, 
are an extension of the popular classification rather than 
an entirely new classification. 

In no case can we reason deductively from a knowledge 
of the physical conditions of sensation to the different 
kinds of resulting sensations. Why the modifications of 
consciousness called " noises " or " tones " run through a 
certain series, iV, iV a , iV 6 , etc., or T, T a , T b , etc., while 
the physical stimulus of sound is changing from S to S v 
S 2 , etc., we cannot in the least explain. Even less, if this 
were possible, do we know why another kind of stimulus 
— that of light upon the eye — should go through the series, 
X, L v L, 2 etc., in order to produce the sensations of red of 
different shades (R, R a , i2 5 , etc.) or of green of different 
shades (6r, Gr a , (r 5 , etc.). 

Sensations of Smell. — These are the peculiar modifica- 
tions of consciousness which are the characteristic result 
of exciting the end-organs of the nose. The end-organs 
of smell are minute nervous structures scattered over the 
mucous membrane in the upper region of the nasal cavity. 
The stimulus is "effluvia," or exceedingly minute parti- 



QUALITY OF SENSATION 63 

cles thrown off from the smellable substance and drawn 
over the organs in the inspired current of air. This view 
is suggested by investigations which have gone on since 
Romieu (1756) discovered that small bits of camphor on 
the surface of water have a curious rotary motion. Sub- 
sequently, several hundred odorous substances have been 
observed to behave in the same way. 

Smells, as sensations, are generally said to be "unclassi- 
fiable." Each smellable object has its own peculiar smell ; 
the behavior of dogs and of certain hypnotic subjects leads 
us to believe that each human body has a characteristic 
odor due to its peculiar effluvia. Smells cannot be sorted 
out into classes, as can colors into red, green, blue, and 
the like. For the same reason, no graphic representation, 
by use of a line, circle, or triangle, is available for the 
phenomena of olfactory sensations. The most recent 
investigations, indeed, point in the direction of our being 
at some time able to arrange these sensations in a scheme 
corresponding to the chemical constitutions of the sub- 
stances exciting them. For example, products relatively 
poor in hydrogen may form "an aromatic series," etc. 

Sensations of Taste. — Somewhat more scientific informa- 
tion is obtainable respecting these sensations than those 
of smell. The end-organs of taste are certain "gustatory 
flasks " or "bulbs " contained in the papillae of the tongue 
and, perhaps, the anterior portions of the soft palate. The 
question whether tastable substances excite different sen- 
sations when applied to different portions of the tongue 
cannot be easily answered. Many persons seem to taste 
sweet and sour chiefly with the tip of the tongue, alkaline 
and bitter with its roots. In general, only fluid bodies, 
or such as are to some extent soluble, excite sensations of 
taste. The saliva is the natural solvent for all tastable 
substances that are solid. 

The attempt has been made to classify sensations of 



64 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

taste. Thus Wunclt would add the alkaline and the 
metallic to the four recognized classes of the sweet, the 
bitter, the salt, and the sour. Much of what is commonly 
called the "taste" of things is traceable to the olfactory 
sensations connected with having them in the mouth. 
Even this admission, however, does not make satisfactory 
such a meagre list as comprises only six different tastes. 
Attempts have been made here also to establish a scientific 
classification on a basis of chemistry. For example, the 
soluble chlorides are said to have a salt taste; but the 
carbons have generally an acid taste; and sweet-tasting 
substances are alcoholic bodies containing the radical 
CH 2 OH. This is chemistry, however, rather than psy- 
chology. 

Sensations of Sound. — Modifications of consciousness 
which arise when the nerves of the ear are irritated by 
acoustic waves (sensations of sound) are of two kinds: 
Noises and Tones, or musical sounds. The mechanical 
structure of the organ of hearing is very complicated, and 
is so arranged as to reduce waves that, in the air, have a 
large amplitude and low intensity to waves in the fluids 
of the inner ear which are exceedingly minute but of 
increased intensity. It is in the inner ear that the 
peculiar end-organs are set, upon which the acoustic 
stimulus acts in a mechanical way. 

In all ordinary experiences noises and tones may be 
fused together. There are few perfectly "pure" tones 
derived from any musical instrument, and the trained 
musical ear can detect some sort of a tone in the worst 
noises. If the violin is liable to sound "scrapy," the axe 
"rings" in semi-musical way, and the door slams with a 
certain timbre of sound. When short, sharp noises, like 
a watchman's rattle, are made as many as six hundred in 
a second, the result may or may not be a tone, according 
as the accompanying sounds are, or are not, dampened. 



QUALITY OF SENSATION 65 

Musical sounds, or tones, are ordinarily complex and 
result from the fusion of a number of simple sensations in 
a sensation-complex which the German psychologists call 
a "clang." Clangs vary in respect of pitch, intensity, 
and timbre. They are " high " or " low, " " loud " or " soft, " 
and they differ as regards that kind of shading which dis- 
tinguishes, for example, the tone a, when sounded on the 
piano, from the same tone on the violin. The pitch of 
tones depends upon the rapidity of the periodic vibrations 
which occasion them. Regarded as varying in pitch, they 
maybe arranged in a "scale," and the entire scale may 
then be symbolized by a line which ascends from a certain 
indefinite depth to a certain indefinite height, and which 
has its tones located at distinguishable points between. 
The way to make a scale of tone-sensations is, given two 
tones, as m and w, that are separated by a discernible 
interval, to put a new tone midway between them, say m' . 
Then between m and m' another tone may be located ; and 
so on until the limit of discernibility is reached. Experi- 
ment shows that the ear can discriminate far more nicely 
than the voice can execute. He would have a poor ear 
who could not discriminate more nicely than quarter tones ; 
while the most accurate singers would find the greatest 
difficulty in singing in quarter tones. By the timbre of 
clangs we understand that complex quality which results 
from mixture of the overtones and the fundamental tone. 
The facts as to the intensity of acoustic sensations will be 
discussed in connection with the general theory of sensa- 
tion magnitudes. 

Visual Sensations. — Those modifications of consciousness 
which arise in response to stimulus of the eyes are of two 
kinds, Light and Color. The external organ of sight may 
be briefly described as a water camera obscura, with a self- 
adjusting lens, and a concave, sensitive membrane as a 
screen on which the image is formed. Light (in the 



66 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

physical meaning of the word) is not, however, the imme- 
diate stimulus of the end-organs of this sense. The truly 
nervous process begins when the rods and cones of the 
retina are excited by photo-chemical changes in the back 
layers of the retina. Sensations of light vary, theoreti- 
cally, all the way from pure white to pure black, through 
all discernible shades of gray. These sensations, like all 
sensations, vary in intensity — from the lowest to the high- 
est degree of brightness. But sensations of color vary in 
that peculiarity of quality which an inspection of the lines 
of a spectrum enables us to distinguish. Things are 
known to have a great variety of the more important 
colors and of minor variations of colors. Using a more 
precise terminology, we may speak of many "hues," or 
colors, as determined by wave-lengths of the stimulus, 
which may be darkened to make various "shades" and 
whitened to make various "tints." 

By experiment, either in the rough way of the unscientific painter 
or in the carefully guarded way of the experimental psychologist, we 
find that mixed impressions of color do not differ as do the colors used 
for the mixture. Thus by selecting "hues" that lie at favorable 
intervals along the spectrum, and mixing them, an indefinite number 
of variable colors may be attained. Indeed, all the colors are obtain- 
able by mixture of a very few fundamental colors. How many, and 
what are the precise hues by mixture of which in differing quan- 
tities and degrees of brightness we can obtain all possible colors is, of 
course, a matter for experiment to determine. Experiment seems to 
show that a selection of three such elementary colors — namely, a 
green, a line somewhere among the so-called reds, and a line some- 
where in the so-called violets or blues — will enable us, for most per- 
sons' eyes, to produce by mixture nearly all the different color-sensa- 
tions. Thus the colors of nature may be considered as compounds of 
three fundamental sensations — red, green, and blue. But these sen- 
sations are not precisely like those included in the spectrum. To 
quote from Dr. Scripture : " The fundamental red would be a deep 
carmine, the red of the spectrum being somewhat whitish and yellow- 
ish. The fundamental green is far greener than spectral green, and 
the fundamental blue corresponds nearly to indigo blue." 



QUALITY OF SENSATION 67 

Purity of Color. — Sensations of color are said to be 
"pure," or "saturated," when they are free from admixt- 
ure with other color-sensations. But none of the hues 
of our ordinary experience are perfectly pure; for they 
may be made to appear brighter by looking at them 
when the eye has already been "fatigued" with the 
complementary color. This composite character of our 
color-sensations does not, however, admit of analysis by 
attentive and discriminating consciousness in precisely 
the same way as does the composite sound, the so-called 
"clang." Normal eyes would distinguish between a 
decidedly blue-green and a yellow-green; and, if one had 
never seen orange, but was familiar with yellow and red, 
one might possibly regard the former as a mixture of the 
latter two. Probably the analysis of "seal-brown" into 
black, white, and orange would be difficult for every one ; 
and certainly the analysis of white into purple and green, 
or into orange and bine, or into violet and yellow-green, 
is quite beyond the limits of the most attentive discrimi- 
nation. 

Complementary Colors. — The colors mentioned in the 
three pairs of the last sentence, when mixed in certain 
proportions by rotating disks, upon most eyes do result in 
the vision of an impure white. In general, white of 
great purity can be produced by mixing an indefinite 
number of pairs of colors which lie at some distance from 
each other in the color spectrum. " Hues " which, when 
mixed together, produce white, are said to be "comple- 
mentary " of each other. The accompanying scheme 
symbolizes this fact of experience. (See Fig. 3, p. 68.) 

Young propounded, and Helmholtz and others (especially, perhaps, 
Koenig) have elaborated, a physiological hypothesis which aims to 
account for the main facts in our experience with colors. It refers 
these sensations to the simultaneous excitement of three kinds of ner- 
vous elements in the retina, in varying proportions. A plausible paral- 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



lei may be drawn (so Scripture) between the use of colored screens in 
triple photography and the effect produced by projecting three slides 
simultaneously, on the one hand, and, 
on the other hand, the resolution of 
colors into three retinal processes and 
the combination of the three in the 
brain to form all colors. So long, 
however, as our theory states itself 
in the terminology of nervous facts 
and processes, it remains as yet only 
conjectural. That color-sensations, 
regarded as psychic phenomena, can 
all be produced by fusion of not more 
than three "fundamental " sensory 
processes, may be regarded as an estab- 
lished truth. By varying the degrees of brightness of light, all the 
modifications of consciousness due to excitement of the retina are 
obtained. 





Thus, in Fig. 4, if we set off the spectrum colors along the line 
from a to H, the proportions of the fundamental color-sensations 
belonging to each spectrum color will be shown for eyes with the 
usual color vision by the curves 3ft, (§, and 38 ; for the green-blind, by 
the curves Wli and 38 ; and for the " red-blind," by the curves S2S 2 
and 38. 

In Fig. 5, " the values of the three fundamental colors are assumed 
to be equal, and they are therefore placed at the angles of an equi- 
lateral triangle, with white in the middle ; but the spectrum colors 
occupy the position indicated by the curved line " inside the 
triangle. 



QUALITY OF SENSATION 69 

Sensations of Pressure. — Among the various modifica- 
tions of consciousness produced by exciting that most essen- 
tial of all the end-organs, the skin, what may be popularly 
described as the "feeling of being touched" stands first. 
Little of a scientific character, however, can be said 
about this class of sensations. Histology shows that the 
nerves distributed in the skin terminate either in free 
end-fibrils or in a variety of minute structures essentially 




alike ("corpuscles of Pacini," etc.). If a point of metal, 
wood, or cork be moved lightly over the skin, a great 
variety of sensations are awakened, but only at minute 
areas will there be a definite "content-full" sensation of 
pressure. Between these areas, either other kinds of sen- 
sations result, or else the pressure-sensations themselves 
are comparatively indefinable, and "content-less." These 
minute areas of greatest sensitivity are, then, properly 
entitled "pressure-spots." Their arrangement, as the 
following diagram (Fig. 6) shows, is customarily in 



70 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



chains which radiate from a kind of central point and run 
in sach directions as to form either circular, longitudinal, 
or pyramidal figures. 

Sensations of Temperature. — One of 
the most striking discoveries of modern 
experimental psychology concerns the 
origin of those modifications of con- 
sciousness which are called "feeling 
hot" or "feeling cold." "Heat-spots" 
and " cold-spots " (or minute areas of 
the skin sensitive to heat and not to cold, and con- 
versely) can be located by experiment. These "temper- 
ature-spots " and the "pressure-spots " appear never to be 
superimposed. Their arrangement (see Fig. 7: A, "Heat- 
spots ; B, " Cold-spots ") is various ; but the lines they 
form generally radiate from centres coincident with roots 
of the hairs, and run so as to cross each other. 






It thus appears that the words "hot" and "cold," as 
applied to sensations, differ totally from the same words 
as used in physics. In physics, these words are relative 
terms. In psychology, they represent what is unlike and 
even opposed. Indeed, experience suggests that either 
the nervous apparatus, or the nerve-processes of the two 
kinds of sensations, must be different. 

Muscular Sensations. — Few subjects of the kind have 
been more debated than the character, and even the very 
existence, of so-called "muscular" sensations. Do the 



QUALITY OF SENSATION 71 

changes which occur in the tissue of the muscles as they 
contract and relax modify consciousness? Physiology, 
introspection, and speculation (based upon the neces- 
sities of psychological theory) have all been appealed to ; 
and they have all returned answer on both sides. We 
believe, however, in the existence and the influence of 
muscular sensations as an important factor for the develop- 
ment of mental life. That is, certain rather massive differ- 
ences in our sense-experience depend upon the quality and 
quantity of the nerve-commotions due to contraction and re- 
laxation of the muscles located in different areas of the body. 
There are three sufficient reasons, however, why we 
do not ordinarily notice qualitative differences in the 
muscular sensations: First, the differences themselves 
are rather gross and are usually less important to attend 
to for purposes of nice discrimination. An important 
exception, however, must be made to this statement in 
the case of the muscles of the eye. Second, these sen- 
sations are "buried," as it were, in the perception of some 
object, or the doing of some work, on which the muscles 
are employed. And, third, these sensations are thor- 
oughly fused with tactual and other specific sensations 
which are more distinct and obtrusive in their qualities 
and which have a stronger feeling-tone. 

(1) Physiology and histology have perhaps not yet demonstrated 
the presence of sensory nerve-endings in such relations with the mus- 
cular tissue that changes in the latter must excite processes in the 
former. But they have made these relations possible, if not probable. 
In spite of the' fact that cutaneous anaesthesia and paralysis of mus- 
cular sensibility usually go together, cases arise where one occurs and 
the other is absent. Some patients can discriminate weights when 
the muscles are called into play, after sensibility of the skin has been 
lost. M. Beaunis knew a singer who could sing almost as accurately 
as before, when the sensibility of the mucous membrane of the larynx 
and vocal cords had been destroyed. Lussana found a patient who 
retained muscular sensibility after losing sensibility in a large area 



72 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

of the skin lying above the muscles. (2) Introspection, with attentive 
discrimination, seems to discern certain sensations which can be attrib- 
uted neither to the skin nor to the joints. These are often localized 
much deeper than the skin-sensations, and appear when we lift unu- 
sual weights, or call out otherwise unaccustomed groups of muscles. 
(3) Consistent and satisfactory theoretical account of the origin and 
development of our perceptions of external objects seems to favor, if 
it does not imperatively demand (we believe the latter position ten- 
able), the important assistance of muscular sensations. This will 
appear clearly in connection with the theory of perception. 

Sensations of the Joints. — Another sort of modification of 
sense-consciousness, which, although ordinarily combined 
with tactual and muscular sensations, can be experiment- 
ally shown to have a separate character, is produced by the 
movements of the limbs over their articulating surfaces. 
The osseous extremities and their synovial membranes are 
found to be rich in minute nerves, and special end-organs 
exist in the neighborhood of all the joints. Goldscheider 
showed that, even with the hand held fast in a plaster 
cast, the least angular bending of the first joint of the 
finger could be perceived. But rendering the joint insen- 
sitive made it necessary to bend the finger far more than 
before in order to have its motion perceived at all. 

Skin, Muscles, and Joints, — it is by complex sensations 
arising in them and fusing in different proportions, that, 
without sight or hearing, we know how to orient our- 
selves, whether actively or passively, in respect to the 
changing relations of our bodily members and of sur- 
rounding objects. 

Organic Sensations. — The so-called "organic sensations " 
are fusions of various simple sensations, especially those 
of temperature and pressure, with characteristic painful 
or pleasurable feelings attached, that have become vaguely 
localized in the internal organs of the body. They are 
exceedingly manifold and variable; they become impor- 
tant factors in those perceptions and conceptions which 



CONDITIONS OF SENSATION 73 

make up our notion of the bodily Self. It is character- 
istic of them all that they are (1) comparatively " content- 
less," (2) obscurely localized, and (3) suffused with a 
strong tone of feeling — usually more or less disagreeable. 

Sensations of each of the various classes differ among 
themselves in respect of both Quality and Quantity. 
If we may, for the moment, speak of them under the 
popular conception of "Feelings," we may say that in 
describing the sensory modifications of consciousness two 
questions may always be asked : How do I feel ? and How 
much do I feel? The "how-I-feel" is called quality, and 
the " how-much-I-f eel " is called quantity or intensity. 

Relations of Quality and Quantity of Sensation. — It has 
just been said that quality may always, at least vaguely, 
be distinguished from the quantity of our sense-experi- 
ence. But introspection, especially when assisted by 
experiment, shows that quality of sensation and quantity 
of sensation are intimately related. That is to say, it is 
difficult, if not impossible, to change the amount of any 
of the psychic processes called sensation, without also 
modifying its quality. In other words, as we experience 
more of any kind of sensation we notice that what we 
experience is not precisely the same kind of sensation. 

Different psychologists have wished to lay the emphasis 
on one or the other of two conclusions concerning the 
nature of our sense-experience. Thus Sully says : " Qual- 
ity is clearly distinct from quantity, and may in general 
be regarded as independent of it. That is to say, we can 
vary intensity without affecting quality." But Miinster- 
berg declares that "quality and intensity are not two 
particular properties of the one sensation, but only the 
directions in which the sensation can be compared with 
other sensations." Strictly interpreting, we find neither 
of these authorities correct. Interpreting liberally, we 



74 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

find both of them correct. Thus, if I am going toward or 
away from a bell that is sounding, I ordinarily attend 
only to the changes of intensity ; it is heard as the same 
bell-sound growing fainter or stronger. But if I also 
attend with a trained discrimination, I can become aware 
that, after all, it is a different bell-sound which I hear ; 
it is a varying "clang," as the relations of the overtones 
to the fundamental tone keep changing. 

The further scientific study of sensations requires, then, 
that we should investigate the two related subjects : (1) 
The conditions under which the qualities of sensations 
change; and (2) the conditions under which the intensity 
or quantity of sensations changes. 

Quality of Sensations depends upon the Sensory Organism. — 
Those modifications of consciousness which arise when 
the organism of sense is irritated depend upon inherited 
and acquired characteristics of that organism. Any func- 
tional disturbance of the end-organs of sense impairs or 
destroys the "qualification" of the corresponding sensa- 
tions. Soaking the end-organs of smell, or drying the 
end-organs of taste, changes the qualities peculiar to sub- 
stances when tested by these organs. Certain persons are 
constitutionally capable of olfactory and gustatory sensa- 
tions quite impossible for other persons. The same thing 
is true of dermal sensations. Stumpf, for example, tells 
of a German student of music who could not learn to play 
the violin correctly because, although not deficient in 
"ear," he could not secure the necessary variety of tactual 
and muscular experience. In sensations of sound a wide 
range of defects or excellences is possible. While even 
Helmholtz ceased to hear a musical sound when the vibra- 
tions were fewer than 34 to the second, Preyer claimed to 
hear the octave below. Turnbull's experiments showed 
that most persons cannot distinguish tones above d 7 or e 7 
(about 20,000 vibrations to the second), but some per- 



CONDITIONS OF SENSATION 75 

sons can hear musical sounds an octave and more higher. 
Again, some are so " tone-deaf " that they cannot discrimi- 
nate semi-tones and even thirds, while others can recognize 
100-200 distinctions of pitch between successive tones of 
the ordinary scale. 

The interesting phenomena of " color-blindness " illustrate the same 
truth. While 96%, or more, of people can distinguish the principal 
" hues " derived by mixture of all three of the fundamental colors, 
and thus are entitled to be called " trichromats," 4%, or less, can only 
distinguish the " hues " which are producible by mixture of two funda- 
mental colors ("dichromats"). An unfortunate few are "monochro- 
matic " ; " as far as color is concerned there is no more meaning in it 
than there is to normal individuals in a photograph or an engraving" 
(Scripture). But both normal and color-blind persons differ in minute 
peculiarities. Even normal " trichromatic " eyes do not agree exactly 
in the proportions of the colors which they require to have mixed in 
order to match any other color in the spectrum. 

As to the precise physiological reasons for so many 
individual variations, we are in almost complete igno- 
rance. We can only reiterate our confidence that such 
reasons must exist. But this important psychological 
principle is undoubted : The sense-experience of every indi- 
vidual is, so far as range of quality in each of the senses is 
concerned, peculiar to that individual. Your world of sense- 
impressions and mine may differ more or less widely ; one 
of us may be " quite shut out " of the world familiar to 
the other. It is certain that those two worlds can never 
be precisely the same. Your world of sense is yours, and 
mine is mine; yet we are living on terms of intercourse 
in the same world. 

Quality of Sensations depends on Portion of Organ stimulated. 
— Even when the organ excited remains the same, and 
the kind of sensation following is not changed, changes 
of quality follow the movement of the stimulus over suc- 
cessive areas. The existence of pressure-spots, heat-spots, 
and cold-spots has already illustrated this. If we divide 



76 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

the retina of the normal eye into three zones, rays which, 
when falling on the polar zone, make an impression of 
red, yellow, or green, all make an impression of yellow a 
few mm. from the centre of the retina. On moving from 
centre to periphery, red may become orange, violet, then 
blue. Every organ is a composite of a vast number of ner- 
vous elements ; and this fact corresponds, in a general way, 
to the variations of sensuous impressions which its excitement 
produces. 

Quality of Sensation depends on Previous Excitement. — 
The entire nervous organism is active from the beginning 
to the end of life. No particular process can be set up in 
it anywhere without feeling the influences resulting from 
previous and simultaneous excitements of the same or- 
ganism. The "principle of relativity," whose bearing on 
the development of mental life will become more promi- 
nent later on, is provided for by the very structure and 
functions of the nervous mechanism. 

Thus smells and tastes, when closely successive, modify 
each other greatly. With two simultaneous odors, the 
stronger overwhelms the weaker; but sometimes the 
stronger also absorbs the weaker. Tastes often compen- 
sate each other, as the sweet sugar and sour lemon of the 
lemonade (Briicke held that the stimuli neutralize each 
other in the brain). The sensation produced by the same 
number of vibrations is not precisely the same when it is 
heard as the "sharp" of the tone below and the "flat" of 
the tone above, — as in the tempered musical scale. In 
general, the quality of every sensation is dependent upon the 
condition of the organism and of the stream of sense-experi- 
ence at the time when the effective excitement of the organism 
takes place. 

Two classes of facts show the modifying influence of the previous 
condition of the retina upon visual sensations : (1) the phenomena of 
" after-images " and (2) the phenomena of " contrast." (1) If we 



CONDITIONS OF SENSATION 77 

close the eyes after looking intently for a few seconds on any bright 
object, we find the image of the object remaining for some time, and 
only slowly fading away. Such an after-image is called "positive." 
But on watching a white positive after-image, it may be seen to pass 
quickly through greenish-blue and indigo-blue to a violet or rose-color. 
And if we look long at a small black square on a white surface, and 
then turn the eyes off to a white background, a bright square will 
appear and fade slowly away. Such sensations are called "negative 
after-images." In general, the color of such an after-image will be 
" complementary " of the color of the object. Positive after-images 
are often explained as due to inertia, and negative after-images to 
exhaustion, of the nerve-elements of the retina. 

(2) The phenomena of contrast fall, at least in part, under the same 
principle. These phenomena are of two kinds, " color-contrast " and 
" contrast of brightness." For example, a small square of white on a 
green surface, when covered with transparent tissue-paper, appears as 
a pale red on a surface of whitish green. Every bright object appears 
brighter when its surroundings are darker than itself, and every dark 
object appears darker with objects surrounding that are brighter than 
itself. That is, sensations which are contiguous in consciousness tend 
to modify each other's character. 

Quality of Sensation depends upon Variations of Stimuli. — 
The most ordinary experience suggests what physics and 
psychology combine to prove in detail : The modifications 
of our sense-consciousness vary with the kind of stimuli 
applied to the end-organs. If we select acoustic vibra- 
tions of sufficient intensity, with a rapidity of 435 per 
second, normal persons are affected by these with a pecu- 
liar auditory sensation, which is called a 1 in the inter- 
national musical scale. Sensations evoked by acoustic 
waves that have a rapidity twice as great, or one-half as 
great, stand to this arbitrarily selected sensation in a 
peculiar, pleasant relation. And between any two tones 
an octave apart, six others are made to stand in the fol- 
lowing ratios : — 

Name C :D:E :F : G : A : B : C 

Relation of single vibrations . . . 1 : f : f : f : f : f : - 1 / : 2 
Relative number of vibrations . . 8 : 9 V 10 : 10f : 12 : 13f : 15 : 16 



T8 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Moreover, when two or more "clangs" are sounded 
together, the resulting complex sensation is either an 
agreeable or a disagreeable modification of sense-conscious- 
ness, which receives the name either of "accord" or "dis- 
cord." The simpler the mathematical relation between 
the two clangs that are sounded together, the more per- 
fect the accord. Thus, Octave (1:2); Twelfth (1:3); 
Fifth (2:3); Fourth (3:4); Sixth (3:5); Major Third 
(4:5); Minor Third (5:6). 

In the case of color-sensations, variations in quality 
(the "hues" of the spectrum) change as the number of 
the oscillations changes. Thus, using the letters of the 
spectrum, physics gives us the following scale extending 
from 412 to 790 trillions of vibrations per second : B (450) ; 
C (472) ; D (526) ; E (589) ; F (640) ; a (722) ; H (790). 
Translated into the language of our sense-experience, this 
means that when the rays of light, so far as they modify 
consciousness at all, run in number up to and beyond 
about 412 trillions, we have sensations corresponding to 
the different varieties of Red ; beyond about 470 trillions, 
our color-sensations take on a yellowish tone (Orange- 
yellow), and beyond 526 trillions become Yellow, — and 
so on, through greenish-yellow to Green, and bluish-green 
to Blue, and Violet. 

In a word : The peculiar characteristics of our sense- 
experience depend upon the varying kinds and amounts of 
those forms of nature 's energy which stimulate the organs of 



Quality of Sensation depends upon Time. — The " inertia " 
of all the end-organs of sense makes it necessary that the 
stimulus should take time in bringing the sensory pro- 
cesses to their maximum of intensity and of definiteness. 
On the side of consciousness, too, no sensation reaches its 
maximum of intensity or defines its own quality with a 
perfect definiteness, without lapse of time. The inertia 



CONDITIONS OF SENSATION 79 

of the end-organs, however, is very different for different 
kinds of sensations. And in our conscious experience the 
sensory modifications grow or develop into a perfection of 
their characteristic quality. Thus Cattell found that the 
time necessary to distinguish the different hues from a 
shade of gray of corresponding intensity varied as follows : 
for red, 1.28 a; for orange, 0.87 <r; for green, 1.42 a; for 
blue, 1.21a; for violet, 2.32o\ The range of difference 
was from a minimum of 0.6 cr for orange and yellow to a 
maximum of 2. 75 a for violet. While we can discriminate 
several hundred sensations of sound due to the crackle of 
an electric spark or to contact with the tooth of a revolv- 
ing wheel, in a second of time, without their "fusing," 
smells and tastes require a much longer period in order 
to define themselves. 

It is a general principle that even simple sensations, how- 
ever instantaneously they appear to rise in conscious?iess, are 
really psychical developments ; and that the full and precise 
quality of sensations is dependent upon the time allowed for 
discriminating consciousness. 

Quality of Sensation depends upon Intensity of Stimulus. — 
It has already been remarked that the amount of sensation 
influences the quality of sensation. " How much " we 
feel, and precisely "how" we feel, are not the same, but 
are dependently related. This influence itself depends 
upon the relation of conscious quality to the intensity of 
the external stimulus. For example, a white of less 
intensity is a shade of gray, and by diminishing the 
amount of light stimulus the sense-consciousness is modi- 
fied from white to black, through all the shades of gray. 
At the minimum intensity of stimulus all the hues 
(except, possibly, the pure red of spectral saturation) 
appear nearly or quite colorless ; they are no longer hues, 
in the strict meaning of the word. That is, the sensa- 
tions, while losing intensity, have also lost their quality. 



80 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Quantity of Sensation. — Terms of quantity, when applied 
to our sense-consciousness, may appeal to incontestable 
experience. How a "strong" sensation differs from a 
"weak " sensation, even when the two are classed together 
as respects quality, I know just as immediately as I know 
how red differs from blue. On this immediate discrimina- 
tion of degrees of sensation, by focusing and distribution 
of attention, the entire science of "psycho-physics" is 
built up. The application to conscious states of mathe- 
matical conceptions, and so of almost all forms of more 
exact experimentation, depends upon the same incon- 
testable experience. 

Measurableness of Sensation. — The attempt to measure 
precisely the amounts of our sensory experiences is full 
of difficulties, and some of the fundamental assumptions 
ordinarily involved in the attempt are debatable. For 
example, no one would misunderstand or dispute the 
statement: This sound seems to me louder than that; or, 
the light of this lamp is brighter than the light of the 
lamp yonder. Who, however, would venture to pro- 
nounce the greenness of this bit of grass precisely 40 % 
more than the olive of that bit of evening sky; or the 
smell of this violet just one-half as strong as the taste of 
his morning's cup of coffee ? 

The fundamental truth of experience is simply this: 
Different sensations do actually differ as respects the way 
in which they answer the question, How much? A cer- 
tain amount of ability for discriminating changes of degree 
in the intensity of sensation is possessed by every one. 
Moreover, such ability may be cultivated, and the results 
of experiment may be used in constructing a theory of 
the quantity of sensations. At the same time what is 
measured is not an entity or static condition of the mind. 
It is rather our discriminating consciousness of the relative 
amounts of the sensory affection of successive conscious states. 



QUANTITY OP SENSATION 81 

The discussion of the measurableness of conscious states in general, 
and of the applicability of the "category of quantity" to them, as 
well as of the most accurate means for measurement, has been given 
much prominence in modern experimental psychology. Some writers 
have even gone so far as to deny that we interpret correctly the modi- 
fications of consciousness when we speak of them as changes of quan- 
tity. But others have used terms such as "threshold of consciousness," 
"unit of measurement," "psycho-physical science," etc,, as though 
mental phenomena were " thing-like " entities of a geometrical order 
to which some kind of an actual measuring-stick could be applied. 

Maxima and Minima of Sensations. — In the case of each 
of the senses, there are certain limits within which quan- 
titative changes have their range. The answer to the 
question, How much do I feel ? can never be either more 
than or less than so much. There is, therefore, both a 
" lower " and an " upper " limit to every kind of sensation- 
experience. Both these limits differ for the different 
senses, for different persons, and for the same person 
under different circumstances. 

We may express all this concisely by some such for- 
mula as the following: If we let It = the range of sen- 
sation, or number of differing intensities of any kind of 
sensory experiences discernible by the individual, S = the 
sensitiveness of the individual to minute changes of inten- 
sity in any particular kind of sensation, and C — the capacity, 
or amount of stimulus which the particular sense is able 

C 1 

to receive, then It = -, where - Cor the "unit of sen- 
S S v 

sitiveness ") is made the standard measure. In this for- 
mula It, S, and C appear as dependent variables. 

The "lower limit" of sensation for the different senses has been 
investigated experimentally with a variety of results. Earlier results 
(Aubert and Kammler) made the lightest weight which gave pressure- 
sensations 0.002 gramme on the forehead, and 0.005-0.015 gramme on 
the volar side of the fingers. More recent experiments (Langlois and 
Richet) found that the coefficient of sensibility for the muscles used 
in respiration is very low as compared with that of the muscles of the 



82 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

limbs and trunk. A movement of the eyes answering to a contrac- 
tion of only 0.0006 mm. of the inner muscles of the eyes can be 
detected. The skin is, under favorable circumstances, about as 
sensitive to changes in temperature as a good thermometer Q° Fahr., 
or less). It has been calculated that work done on the ear-drum 
amounting to only z \^ billionth kilogramme-meter will, under the best 
conditions, give rise to a sensation of sound. Aubert fixed the lower 
limit of light-sensations at g^ 5 of that reflected from white paper 
under the full moon. Some persons can taste one part in 392,000 
of quinine, or even one part in 1,280,000 of strychnine. And it is 
claimed that the incredibly small amount of teoVooffs milligramme 
of mercaptan has been smelled. 

Obviously, it is unsafe to the organs or impossible experimentally 
to determine how much of most forms of sensory stimuli can be 
experienced as quantity of sensation (the " upper limit ") . 

General Quantitative Relations between Sensations and 
Stimuli. — It is obviously an interesting problem for psy- 
cho-physics to discover the law which controls the relations 
between changes in the amount of external stimulus and 
resulting changes in our sensory experience. The most 
ordinary observation convinces every one that, in general, 
increase in the amount of stimulus results in larger amount 
of sensation; and vice versa. But only a little more obser- 
vation is necessary in order to make it obvious that these 
two kinds of increase or decrease do not vary in the same 
proportion. For a long time astronomers have known 
that, if the stars are classified according to their apparent 
brightness (the amount of the sensory impression), this 
classification does not correspond to the absolute bright- 
ness of the stars as determined by physical measurements. 

About the middle of this century Weber published the 
results of experiments undertaken in the direction of 
finding some formula which should express the general 
relation referred to above. His method of experiment 
was to discover how much a weight must be decreased (or 
increased) in order that the difference may be just notice- 
able. Similar experiments followed, by him and by others, 



QUANTITY OF SENSATION 83 

with pressure-sensations, with sensations of sound, of 
light, and even of taste and smell — although the two 
latter do not easily lend themselves to experimental 
determination. The result was the announcement of a 
general rule called " Weber's Law " : For any given class 
of sensations, the least noticeable difference is a constant 
fraction of the sensation. This law may be stated in 
several different ways ; among others, the following : The 
strength of the stimulus must increase in geometrical 
proportion, if the estimated strength of the sensation is 
to increase in arithmetical proportion. Translated into 
plainer terms of experience, this means: If you want to 
produce an appreciable change in the amount of any sen- 
sory impression, you must add to, or subtract from, the 
stimulus a nearly uniform proportion of the amount. For 
it is change rather than absolute amount of sensation- 
experience which is consciously measured. 

Validity of Weber's Law. — The above-mentioned formula 
turns out, as tested by actual experiment, only approxi- 
mately correct. For the median ranges of sensation, 
especially of visual sensations and pressure-sensations, it 
is most nearly exact. Near the upper and lower limits, 
and in complicated and nice comparisons, many confusing 
considerations seem to influence our discriminations. 
Making allowances for these, however, we may pronounce 
this formula to be a valid psycho-physical law — so far 
as such a term can properly be applied to conscious 
phenomena. 

To illustrate Weber's law : if for a weight of 10 oz. we fail to per- 
ceive a difference of less than 1 oz., we shall fail under similar circum- 
stances to perceive a difference of less than 1 lb. in 10 lbs. (" least 
perceptible difference " = J T ) . 

The following list gives specimen results of experiments in various 
senses. [If the law were absolutely exact, the fractions would remain 
unchanged ; but the series, as given, show how the results fluctuate 
as the stimulus increases] : — 



84 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



(1) Intensity of sound (noise of falling ball) with a range from 1 
to 10,000 : T \, tV, tV> 2T' An A' &i ^o. et c- (2) Intensity of light 



(gray disks) with range from 10 to 1000 : T ^, T 

iiii 

jf 2' X2X> ITS' XT 
|j i) h XT) 11' x 



(3) Lifted weights, from 1 to 4000 : 

tV? A) tV> T5 



Weber's Law 



The exact expression for Weber's law is 



C, where R denotes 



the amount of the stimulus, a the amount of the least noticeable 
difference, and C a number fixed for the particular person, under 
certain circumstances, and a particular form of sensation. The pro- 
portions of the lines in the accompanying diagram illustrate the same 
law (see Fig. 8). The vertical lines 1 to 7 represent stimuli of dif- 
ferent intensities ; the least noticeable difference is supposed to be £ 
of the stimulus. 



QUANTITY OF SENSATION 



85 



Fechner's Law. — In accepting and modifying Weber's 
law, Fechner made two suppositions : (1) The least per- 
ceptible difference always means to us the same thing 
mentally ; it may therefore be treated as a constant quan- 
tity. (2) What is true for finite differences will be true 
for infinitely small differences. 



Feclmer ' s Law 



vP* 



**• 



C=10 



With the two foregoing suppositions we have the experi- 
mental results treated by this distinguished physicist and 
psychologist as the basis for the most wide-reaching meta- 
physical theories of the relations of body and mind, and of 
matter and mind generally. But this, as we have already 
indicated, is to treat the noticeable psychical changes in 
quantity as though they were entities. The psychologist 
can only accept this law as tested by its ability to furnish a 
brief expression for a series of observed psychical facts. 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



R 

where R = the amount of the stimulus, dR the increment of the stim- 
ulus, and C the same kind of a constant as that denoted by this letter 
in formulating Weber's law. Hence E = C log R ; or the amount of 
the sensation (E) varies as the natural logarithm of the stimulus (log 
R) and the constant as before (C). The same law is expressed in 
the accompanying figure (No. 9), where the values of the stimuli are 
laid off on the horizontal line. The upper row of figures gives the 
value of the stimulus in physical units, e.g., grammes ; and the lower 
row gives the same values with the least noticeable sensation as a 
unit. Then for each value, as expressed in terms of the least notice- 
able sensation, we may count off on the vertical line (the " scale of 
sensation ") a number equal to the natural logarithm of that value. 
The constant for each individual case (in the figure, C = 10) adjusts 
the scale of sensation to its proper height. 

Education of the Senses. — The purely psychological view 
of the nature and development of our sense-experience has 
most important bearings upon the genesis and training of 
the life of the senses. Sensation has been seen to be a 
psychical process involving an original forthputting of 
mental life, and requiring the development of attentive, 
discriminating consciousness. Its conditions are, then, 
exceedingly varied, both physiological and psychological. 
By attentive and educated discrimination it is possible 
enormously to extend the range of this sense-experience, 
with all that such extension implies and produces. The 
very existence of a considerable part of this experience 
depends upon education. He who educates himself or 
others, thereby makes possible for himself and for them a 
world of sensuous richness and beauty from which the 
uneducated mind is entirely shut out. He also trains 
the intellect, at its very foundations and in most effective 
fashion. For the world of our sensation-experience is not 
a ready-made affair. It, too, is a world of mind. It is a 
world to be created and appreciated only by a trained use 
of the senses. 



EDUCATION OF THE SENSES 87 

[The literature accessible for the study of the psychology of sensa- 
tion is especially rich. Brief popular introductions are McKendrick 
and Snodgrass : Physiology of the Senses ; Bernstein : Five Senses 
of Man. More detailed treatment may be found in Mach : The 
Analysis of the Sensations; and Scripture: The New Psychology. 
The more advanced student may be referred to the monographs of 
Helmholtz : Physiologische Optik und Tonempfindungen ; Stumpf, 
Tonpsychologie ; and E. Gurney : The Power of Sound. The experi- 
mental and theoretical discussion of Weber's and Fechner's law has 
called forth such monographs as Fechner's Elemente d. Psychophysik ; 
G. E. Midler : Zur Grundlegung d. Psychophysik, and others. Most 
students, however, will find quite enough to start and guide their 
inquiry in Ladd : Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 356-381 ; 
and James : The Principles of Psychology, I, pp. 533-549.] 



CHAPTER V 

FEELING 

There is no other possible way of telling "what it is to 
feel " than by appealing directly to the experience of feel- 
ing. The very life and essence of feeling is in being felt. 
Feeling cannot, therefore, have its intrinsic nature defined 
in terms of knowledge. 

Nature of Feeling. — The favorite description of the 
peculiarity of affective or emotional consciousness is to 
call it "subjective." Thus one writer says that the term 
feeling is used to "denote the subjective aspect of con- 
sciousness anywhere and everywhere"; and another de- 
clares: "Feeling is subjective experience par excellence." 
There is a side of truth in such statements. We have 
seen that, from the psychologist's point of view, all expe- 
riences or conscious states are regarded as of the subject, 
that is, as subjective. But we have also seen that sensa- 
tions are such experiences as become for us peculiarly 
objective; for by means of them the qualities of things are 
known. Things may, indeed, cause important modifica- 
tions of my feeling consciousness; this happens when I 
am stung by a bee or am given pleasure by listening to 
a skilled player on the violin. Still the pain and the 
pleasure not only are mine, but they are not transferable 
to the objects which cause them. Modify the words as 
we will, we cannot conceive of our pains and pleasures as 
qualities of things. The feelings, then, are peculiarly 
subjective, as distinguished from the objectivity which 
visual, tactual, and auditory impressions come to have. 

Feeling as Primary. — Various attempts have been made 
to treat all forms of feeling as derivative and secondary. 
88 



NATURE OF FEELING 89 

But these attempts have failed; and they always will fail, 
for the very good reason that the affective aspects of our 
conscious states are immediately and indubitably recog- 
nized as something essentially different from our thoughts 
or ideas or deeds of will. There is no distinction which 
men make any more readily or incontrovertibly than the 
distinction between how they feel and their own percep- 
tions or ideas as to how things behave, or their own resolu- 
tions to effect changes in things. In saying this, however, 
it is not meant to contradict the truth already repeatedly 
asserted ; namely, all three fundamental forms of mental 
life are given in the unity of one consciousness. Still, as 
Dr. Ward has declared: "Feeling, as such, is, so to put 
it, matter of being rather than of direct knowledge." 

Several incorrect views as to the nature of feeling meet us at the 
very threshold of the subject. They all seem among the most aston- 
ishing of psychological vagaries, so flatly do they contradict the 
plainest deliverances of consciousness, and so incapable are they of 
adapting themselves to the needs of a comprehensive and satisfying 
psychological theory. Among such views the following three require 
mention. First: the physiological theory of feeling begins by affirm- 
ing that all affective modifications of consciousness, as such, are only 
a becoming-aware of the condition of the nervous system under the 
action of varying quantities of stimuli. To this it is quite sufficient 
to reply that the very conception of feeling is not " a becoming-aware" 
of anything, but " a being affected " somehow ; and further, that the 
most refined physiological research has not as yet made us immediately 
aware of the conditions of the nervous system which accompany the 
varying kinds and degrees of feeling. How can my being in such, 
or such, a state of feeling be identified in nature with any doubtful 
physiological theory? 

But, second, the Herbartian theory of feeling makes the existence 
and characteristics of feeling dependent upon the character of the 
ideating activity ; and this in such a way that the feeling, as such, 
is the becoming-aware of the reciprocal action of the ideas. As the 
most masterly writer (Volkmann) of this school declares: "Feeling 
is to be considered as the consciousness of the process of ideation 
itself, as distinguished from consciousness of this or that particular 



90 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

idea." Now that our thoughts aud ideas do influence our feelings 
is a plain and popular statement of the truth of experience. More- 
over, that the flow of the stream of ideation and thinking makes itself 
felt in peculiar forms of accompanying feelings is a psychological 
principle which needs to be further examined. But when the most 
primary conscious experiences are identified with the recognition of 
an abstruse and doubtful mathematics of ideation, the testimony 
of the " inner witness " is quite too much strained in the interests of 
a school of psychologists. 

The third theory of the nature of feeling identifies nil feeling with 
pleasurable and painful sensations. Biology, invading psychology, has 
favored this theory. The apparent fact that certain minute areas of 
the skin, when stimulated, are more sensitive to such excitements as 
result in disagreeable (or agreeable) modifications of consciousness 
has furnished warrant for a leap to the tremendous conclusion : All 
feelings, as such, are reducible to the " pleasure-pain " series of sensa- 
tions. This leap accomplishes two things at once : it takes the place 
of proof that all agreeable and disagreeable consciousnesses are to be 
classed with sensation-experiences ; and it assumes that all feelings, 
as such, are only different intensities of such agreeable and disagree- 
able consciousnesses (i.e., belong to the pleasure-pain series). 

The theory which maintains that the pleasure-pain sensory modi- 
fications of consciousness constitute all there is — so to speak — of 
human feeling, as such, is confuted at every point by psychological 
considerations: (1) The conviction that human feelings are fitly 
spoken of as ethically " noble " or "base," and as aesthetically "re- 
fined " or " coarse," may be appealed to in refutation of this theory. 
(2) Without discriminating consciousness we cannot, of course, know 
our own feelings as differing either in kind or in degree. By attentive 
discrimination, however, I do recognize many important differences 
of quality just as immediately and indubitably as the varying degrees 
of intensity to my pleasures and pains. How can it be maintained in 
the face of consciousness that the feeling of surprise does not differ 
in quality from the feeling of expectation, — either of which may be 
more or less painful or pleasurable ? Does the feeling of doubt differ 
from that affective consciousness which we call conviction, only by 
having a different place in the intensity belonging to the pleasure- 
pain series? But (3) this theory is self-contradictory throughout. 
For by arranging our pleasures and pains along a scale of intensity 
and then applying a compound term to all members of the scale 
(namely, "pleasure-pain") we do not annul or explain, the distinct 



NATURE OF FEELING 91 

difference between pleasure and pain themselves. Pleasure and pain 
are left different in some characteristic other than mere differences of 
quantity. They are so different that they may fitly be called " oppo- 
sites," and placed at different poles. But what common characteristic 
renders it possible to class these opposites together, except just this ; 
they are both feelings? The theory is forced to hold, then, that two 
kinds of feelings, as such, which are inherently different in kind, may 
run along parallel so far as quantity is concerned. But this contradicts 
the fundamental assumption of the theory. 

Physiological Conditions of Feeling. — Although all affec- 
tive modifications of consciousness cannot be reduced to 
physiological processes of which we are conscious, a 
plausible view may be formed of the physiological con- 
ditions of these peculiar psychical processes. Investiga- 
tion, however, has as yet only made it possible to propose 
a view that may claim to be plausible. Two classes of 
facts require to be explained: first, the changes in kind 
of our conscious states of feeling; and, second, the rise 
and fall in degree of the different kinds of such conscious 
states. We believe that the best account of the physio- 
logical conditions of all the feelings is afforded by the 
following principle : At any particular moment the kind and 
amount of feeling experienced has for its physiological con- 
dition the total complex relation in tohich all the subordinate 
neural processes, set up by the stimuli of that moment, stand 
to one another and to the " tendency" or direction, of pre- 
existing related neural processes. 

In giving the detailed proof of the foregoing conjecture, 
one remarkable difference between the conscious processes 
which psychology treats, and those processes in the brain 
which are supposed to be specially connected with the 
conscious processes, demands consideration. So far as any- 
thing can be known about the processes of the brain, they 
are all of one kind, essentially alike. They are chemico- 
physical changes, — movements of the molecules and atoms 
of the cerebral substance. The brain, like every material 



92 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

thing, can only be the subject of movements. But we 
have seen that discriminating consciousness analyzes the 
conscious processes into three essentially unlike kinds, 
although all three are found together in the unity of the 
stream of consciousness. These three processes are per- 
ceiving or thinking somewhat, feeling somehow, and doing 
something. The "feeling somehow " must, then, have its 
physiological conditions in some kind and degree of mo- 
lecular movements in the nervous system — especially in 
the substance of the brain. 

The following considerations support our theory of the physiological 
conditions of all feeling-consciousness. (1) We have little knowledge 
by immediate perception of the size, shape, temperature, and movement 
of the intercostal and visceral organs. But from all these organs an 
indescribable mixture (or melange) of nerve-commotions is ceaselessly 
ascending through the cerebro-spinal tracts to the brain. It is chiefly 
this which gives conditions to our emotional tendency, or mood, 
or temporary impulse. It is largely productive of that class of 
bodily feelings which forms so much of the " feeling of self," as in 
this or that " temper " or " mood." As long as this mixture corre- 
sponds in character to that to which we are habitually accustomed, 
we say that we "feel like ourselves"; when it departs from this 
customary type, we say we " feel queer," or " not a bit like ourselves." 

(2) This crowd of cerebral nerve-commotions, when much in- 
creased in number and intensity, becomes a sort of " surplusage," or 
semi-chaotic and overflowing quantity not adapted to be elaborated 
into the sensuous basis of definite perceptions and ideas. Intense 
and confusing forms of feeling result, such as those of excitement, 
hurly-burly, bewilderment, etc. 

(3) The nerve-commotions, when they enter the centres of the 
brain and diffuse themselves there, always encounter a certain con- 
dition of those centres as respects the amount and kind of nervous 
excitement already existing in them. The relation in which the 
incoming crowd of nerve-commotions stands to the previous condi- 
tion of excitement determines the character of the feeling called into 
consciousness. The feeling of ennui or monotony indicates little or 
no change in the kind and amount of the obscure crowd of entering 
nerve-commotions. The feelings of surprise and shock indicate an 
opposite relation. The painful feelings which are produced by sudden 



NATURE OF FEELING 93 

and uncertain changes in the stimuli — as by a "nickering" light or 
an " interrupting " and " shocking " noise — indicate a " more or 
less profound troubling of the organism." 

(4) The characteristic feelings of the two sexes and of the different 
ages are explained in the same way. The rapid metabolism of the 
infant, and the sluggish digestion and circulation of old age, give 
conditions to the characteristic feelings of each time of life. And 
every particular strong emotional stimulus has its effect as a "semi- 
chaotic " surplus relative to the entire life of the bodily system. Thus 
intense sensations are enjoyable to a hearty and mature body, but are 
painful to the weak and undeveloped organism. 

The Kinds of Feeling. — What are called "feelings," in 
the language of every-day experience, are very complex 
conscious states. They are never merely affective or emo- 
tional, but are fused or associated with simultaneous per- 
ceptions, thoughts, ideas, and deeds of will. In this way 
the description of these complex examples of the developed 
life of the mind becomes greatly complicated. The only 
available means for classifying the feelings is to take 
account of these connections. According to the connec- 
tion or reference of the complex modifications of con- 
sciousness, when considered "feeling-wise," the following 
classes may be distinguished: (1) Sensuous Feelings, or 
such as are dependent upon the different qualities of the 
special senses and of so-called " common feeling " ; (2) In- 
tellectual Feelings, or such as depend upon the character 
of the processes of ideation and thought ; (3) iEsthetical 
Feelings, or such as arise in connection with the percep- 
tion or imagination of what we call "beautiful" or its 
opposite; arid (4) Ethical Feelings, or such as arise in 
contemplation of those forms of conduct which we call 
"right" or its opposite. 

Sensuous Feeling. — Certain emotional modifications of 
consciousness attach themselves to all our sensations,- — • 
more obviously to the more intense sensations, • — -and thus 
constitute the subjective side of sensation-consciousness. 



94 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

The phrase "sensuous feelings'" emphasizes the sub- 
jective side of all sensory experience. Popular language 
recognizes the fact that sensations of smell and of taste, 
for example, may be described as "heavy," or "enliven- 
ing," or "spicy," and as "exciting" or "depressing." 
This description emphasizes something in them, however, 
besides their intensity or their characteristic sensation- 
quality. The "affection" produced, for example, by the 
heliotrope is different from that produced by the Japanese 
lily. This is, in its way, as true as that one sensation 
must be called the smell of the heliotrope, and the other 
sensation the smell of the lily; while both may be of 
about the same degree of magnitude and equally pleasing 
or displeasing. Sensations of touch, of temperature, and 
of muscular activity, differ in their characteristic accom- 
paniments of feeling. We cannot easily "feel" grave 
and dignified when our muscular and tactual sensations 
are such as accompany a mincing walk or a hop-skip-and- 
jump. We cannot have the comfort of feeling "cuddled," 
and of feeling " buoyant " in motion, at one and the same 
time. 

Musicians have always attached different kinds of feeling to tones 
of different timbre, to different keys and chords and intervals. Such 
distinctions may easily be run out into the regions of fancy; but they 
are based on indubitable facts of human affection. Stumpf — musi- 
cian as well as psychologist — tells how his son Rudolph, a child of 
four-and-a-half years, when he had to choose between two trumpets 
which differed by a tone, preferred the " darker one." The " grave " 
pleasure of feeling belonging to the bass register differs in another 
way than that of mere intensity from the " stirring " of feeling by a 
tenor voice. And who that knows anything about music could fail 
to discriminate, as of a markedly different quality, the " sweet-pain " 
of minor strains and the " strenuous sweetness " of a high-pitched 
major? The feeling of "grace" which belongs to Mozart's Opus 46 
in E flat is not the same kind of pleasure as the feeling of "passionate 
fervor" belonging to his Opus 47 in G minor. 

The feelings which fuse with the different sensations of light and 



NATURE OF FEELING 95 

color, or which follow upon attending to the characteristic quality of 
these sensations, have been differently described by different persons. 
That such feelings are a genuine factor in consciousness our most 
common forms of speech abundantly show. Some colors are " cheer- 
ful" and others are " mournful." Some shades and tints are "warm " 
and others are " cold." To account for the exciting influence of red 
upon many animals, by its conscious association with the sight of 
blood, seems unsatisfactory. This influence is more like that expe- 
rienced by many persons on receiving the impression of certain smells. 
Hbffding calls upon us to observe how, with increase and diminution 
in the amount of illumination, "the effect on feeling sustains a cor- 
responding change." It is well known how much significance for 
feeling Goethe found in his experience of the different colors. The 
misfortune of seeing the world through "jaundiced eyes" is not 
merely a pathological affair. 

The important modifications of "common feeling" and 
of the "feeling of self" which accompany disturbance of 
the obscure and mixed sensations that arise from the 
internal organs of chest and abdomen are well known. 
Not infrequently these disturbances lie at the base of 
serious perversions of the entire current of mental life. 
The man who feels his own heart or other viscera in 
unfamiliar — not to say painful — ways, begins by feeling 
himself "queer"; he may end by not feeling "at all like 
his old self," and even with the partial or almost total 
obscuration of his conceptions of self. 

Feeling of Relation. — So far as is necessary for our 
present purpose, the feeling of relation may be treated as 
the one formula applicable to many of the higher intel- 
lectual, sesthetical, and ethical emotions and sentiments. 
Here the general principle may be stated as follows: The 
character and rate of the change ivhich takes place in the 
sensational and ideational factors of the stream of conscious- 
ness determines certain characteristic '•'•affections.'''' All the 
affections may be considered, on one side, as different 
forms of the "feeling of relation." Both Mr. Spencer and 
the Herbartians are wrong in their view of the nature of 



96 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

thought and of feeling, in this mutual dependence. But 
both are right in insisting upon the important truth, too 
much neglected by most other psychologists: One feels, as 
to ell as knows, the characteristic differences in the flow of the 
" stream of consciousness.'''' 

The time-rate of the change in our sensations and ideas 
determines certain feelings of relation. A fairly rapid 
and yet equable flow of the processes of ideation, percep- 
tion, and thinking, produces feelings of pleasurable excite- 
ment — of being alive in a safe and controllable way. 
But too rapid flow of these intellectual processes produces 
the feeling of confusion, of being "run away with" by 
one's own sensations or ideas. On the contrary, too slow 
a pace to the same processes occasions feelings of languor 
and drowsiness, or of tedium and depression of spirits. 
The emotional experiences which characterize insane 
"melancholia," on the one hand, and insane "mania," 
on the other hand, depend largely on the time-rate of the 
sensory and ideational processes. 

It is probable that all the more primary intellectual 
processes have their characteristic accompanying feelings. 
Children often feel what they hear read or said, with an 
appropriateness which quite outstrips their powers of 
understanding. The impulse to resist, or to obey, may be 
aroused through the feeling with which the words of a 
command are uttered. And all language, as will appear 
more clearly later, is as truly adapted to express and to 
arouse the affective and emotional side of consciousness 
as its more ideational and conceptual side. For each of 
the simpler intellectual processes is felt as it is performed 
by the attentive and discriminating mind. The percep- 
tion of the similar is excited and guided by the feeling of 
recognition. The feeling with which we greet the con- 
trasted or the opposite is a yet different affair. It would 
even appear that men " feel their way " to right conclu- 



FEELING AS PLEA8UBE-PAIN 97 

lions in argument; and fchat fchey accept or reject the 
expressed conclusions of others, largely as those conclu- 
sions modify their affective consciousness. Correct mem- 
pry, too, is helped out and confirmed by a certain form of 

feeling; Incorrect memory is checked and chastened by a 
different form of feeling. More complex feelings of rela- 
tion will be considered later on. 

But the illustrations of our contention arc without 
number. They comprise the entire field of mental life. 
We can only, at present, remark again how deplorably 
meagre is that view of the nature of human feeding which 
reduces it to terms of the varying magnitudes in a certain 
kind of sensations called either pleasure or pain. 

Feeling as "Pleasure-Pain." — Although affective modifi- 
cations of consciousness cannot properly be described as 
mere variations in intensity of pleasure and pain, the 
terms "agreeable "' and "disagreeable " undoubtedly apply 
to most of our feelings. For example, the hading of sur- 
prise may be of t. uch a "tone" or character as to be wel- 
come; on the contrary, it may be more or Less repulsive. 

The same thing LS true both of all our simpler and our 
more complex forms of feeling. The fact that in developed 
mental life we can often (but by no means always) give 
reasons why the particular feeling is agreeable or disagree- 
able, does not at all disturb the more fundamental fact; 
feeling as such, is agreeable or disagreeable. This funda- 
mental fact has been expressed iii many ways; and psy- 
chologists have hotly debated over the way of expresi ing 
the fact. We repeat: the fact is that most, of our feel- 
ings arc either agreeable or disagreeable; but we cannot 
account for the variety of our feelings, as such, by resolv- 
ing them nil into these two kind-; of characteristics which 
most feelings pot e 

This general relation of pleasure-pain to the affective 
modifications of consciousness we prefer to indicate by 



98 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

calling pleasure and pain (or the being agreeable or dis- 
agreeable) the " tone " of feeling. Any one who does not 
like this figurative phraseology is at liberty to adopt a 
better — only if, however, he thus provides for all the 
facts of experience. 

General Influence of Pleasure-Pain. — It is scarcely neces- 
sary to dilate upon the influence over human life, whether 
it be that of the individual or that of the race, which is 
exercised by the various forms of pleasure and pain. The 
poets have emphasized this influence ; we may recall in 
this connection Schiller's " Hunger and Love " as the 
great impulses to live and to work. Political economists 
have often rather overdone the same thing in the interests 
of the lower forms of happiness and unhappiness so-called. 
Yet we may well exclaim with them: "It is difficult to 
conceive what life would be if pleasure and pain were 
stricken out . . . leave them out, and life and the universe 
no longer have meaning." It needs to be noticed, how- 
ever, that, while the popular usage tends to restrict the 
word "pain" to experiences which are sensuously disa- 
greeable in a high degree, psychology covers all degrees 
and kinds of the agreeable and the disagreeable with the 
compound word "pleasure-pain." 

Neutral Feelings. — That most affective experiences have 
some slight degree, at least, of the pleasure-pain charac- 
teristic — some " tone " — is admitted by all. But it has 
been much debated whether any of our feelings are abso- 
lutely without such tone. Neutral or indifferent feelings 
were recognized by Reid, but disputed by Hamilton. 
James Mill asserted that the greater part of our sensations 
are colorless as respects the pleasure-pain qualification. 
Bain, too, claims that "we may feel and yet be neither 
pleased nor pained." And Wundt has attempted to prove 
by plotting a curve for the varying intensities of the two 
opposites, pleasure and pain, that we cannot pass from 



FEELING AS PLEASURE-PAIN 99 

one to the other without going through a "zero-point," or 
point of indifference. Experience, however, does not 
seem uniformly to correspond to the continuous flow of a 
curved line ; as in the case of a child stung by a bee while 
it is eating honey. On the other hand, many psychologists 
have attempted to prove the contention that we always 
feel at least slightly pleased or slightly pained. And even 
Lotze has said: " We apply the name 'feelings ' exclusively 
to states of pleasure and pain in contrast with sensa- 
tions as indifferent perceptions of a certain content." 
Of course, those whose theory identifies feeling with 
pleasure-pain cannot consistently speak of neutral feelings. 

The truth seems to be that in fairly good health, and 
when occupied with work not decidedly distasteful, men 
pass much of their time without any conspicuously con- 
scious tone of pleasure or pain characterizing the stream 
of consciousness. But there are few, if any, feelings which 
do not develop some pleasure-pain tone when they are 
made the objects of purposive attention. To make, off- 
hand, as it were, a uniform law seems scarcely warrant- 
able. Nor does there seem any good reason to be adduced 
why the experience of all persons should follow a uniform 
law in this regard. 

Conditions of Pleasure-Pain. — Biology has attempted 
to handle the' problem of the origin of our pleasures and 
pains. But it can only assist psychology by showing how 
increased intensities of pleasure or of pain may become 
attached to certain physiological functions in accordance 
with the biological principle of evolution. Here both 
biology and psychology have to assume the existence of 
this characteristic tone of the subjective side of conscious- 
ness. It is rather in the study of ethics, of aesthetics, 
and of social phenomena that satisfactory "reasons" in 
the place of partial causes for many of the phenomena 
may be found. 



100 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Even the immediate physiological conditions of our 
pleasures and pains are obscure. Observation and experi- 
ment have as yet established no universal physiological 
law bearing upon the subject. The most important and 
indisputable generalization has reference to the dependence 
of the pleasure-pain tone of feeling on the varying in- 
tensities of the stimulus. We shall refer to this later. 

It has been claimed that the existence of so-called " pain-spots " in 
the skin is demonstrated by experiment ; and that therefore we are 
warranted in classifying our pains with the specific sensations. Ap- 
parently, however, all that has been shown is this : certain minute 
areas of the skin are relatively sensitive to stimulation ; they respond 
with sensations of a painful tone, under lower intensities of stimulus. 
The sensation of touch and the feeling of pain, both due to stimulat- 
ing the same areas, are sometimes separable both in time and in fact ; 
and disease may render a certain member of the body insensible to 
pain and not to touch, and conversely. Severe cold, chloroform, and 
hypnosis, sometimes occasion the same separation of the sensation of 
pressure and the so-called sensation of pain. But these facts do not 
prove the character of pain as a specific sensation. They rather 
constitute an argument against identifying any sensation with the 
painful tone of feeling which is its customary accompaniment. The 
separation in time, in such cases, is explained by the physiological 
fact that the nerve-processes on which the pain is dependent are the 
more widely diffused, both peripherally and centrally. There is 
abundant proof that such processes travel more slowly than the 
sensory processes ; for when one is struck a smart blow, the percep- 
tion of being struck comes first, and the pain of being struck follows 
after. 

Statements such as that "pleasure is the positive feeling of a thing 
which accords with our nature, as pain is the negative feeling of an 
object which is contrary to our essence," are more sonorous than 
illumining. The same criticism seems to us to apply to Grant Allen's 
declaration : " Pleasure is the concomitant of the healthy action of 
any or all of the organs or members supplied with the afferent 
cerebro-spinal nerves, to an extent not exceeding the ordinary powers 
of reparation possessed by the system." Mr. Allen has himself char- 
acterized as " too vague " the theory of Bain which connects states of 
pleasure with an increase and states of pain with an abatement of 



FEELING AS PLEASURE-PAIN 101 

some, or all, of the vital functions. Lotze's view is more tenable : 
" Feeling (that is, as pleasure and pain) is only the measure of the 
partial and momentary accord between the effect of the stimulus and 
the conditions of vital activity." 

No merely physiological theory yet proposed is entirely satisfactory 
in explanation of our pleasures and pains. All such theories are 
subject to the following, among other, objections: (1) There is no 
proof that many slight and yet disagreeable intensities of certain 
stimuli are harmful, except the conjecture which the theory supports. 
(2) These theories neglect too largely those conditions of the central 
nervous system in which (rather than in conditions of the organs 
exposed to the stimulus) the very nature of our pleasure-pains has 
its physical basis. (3) These theories offer no explanation of the 
large field of pleasures and pains that are non-sensuous. 

Intensity of Excitement and Pleasure-Pains. — The one 
thing which is most indubitably known about the primary 
causes of disagreeable or agreeable feelings is that their 
tone is dependent upon the amount of neural excitement. 
It is this fact which shapes almost all the language with 
which the characteristics of feeling are expressed. Men 
speak of being "pierced" or "crushed" with sorrow; of 
being "overwhelmed" in a sea of pain. Their pleasures 
are characterized as " refined " and " gentle " or as " coarse " 
and "strong." But the amount of various sensations, or 
of the different intellectual and sesthetical processes, which 
different individuals can " bear " (how expressive this 
word!) differs enormously. A somewhat complex, and 
necessarily rather indefinite, formula may be used for the 
entire set of relations which is maintained between in- 
tensities of excitement and the resulting pleasure-pain. 
That is to "say: How much in amount of neural processes 
can be " borne" without pain, or even enjoyed, varies with an 
indefinite number of considerations resolvable into the consti- 
tution, habit, present condition, and " occupation" of the cen- 
tres of the brain. 

The principle just stated is illustrated by all the recent 
experiments which have dealt with the question. For 



102 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



example, the following table summarizes results reached 
by Dr. Griffing on the amount of pressure in kilogrammes 
which just reached the "threshold of pain " in the several 
classes of persons experimented with. The same stimulus 



Class . . . 


50 boys 


40 college 
men 


38 law 
students 


58 women 


40 college 
women 


Ages . . . 


12-15 


16-21 


19-25 


16-22 




Average . . 


4.8 kilgr. 


5.1 kilgr. 


7.8 kilgr. 


3.6 kilgr. 


3.6 kilgr. 



applied to corresponding organs in different human bodies 
may occasion different amounts of that "semi-chaotic sur- 
plus " of nerve-commotions in the centres of the brain to 
which the mind responds with feelings of pleasure or of 
pain. The pleasurable or painful character of the response 
depends also upon the constitution, habits, and present 
condition, of those centres. Strong sensations usually 
hurt; too vivid mental images are likely to be disagree- 
able; too intense thinking is not pleasant. But one may 
get pleasure in feeling the edge of a razor, if one do not 
press too hard; while too much honey may be more dis- 
agreeable than a weak solution of quinine. Even weak 
sensations may be intensely painful, if the nerve-centres 
are hyper-sesthetic, or if they are not adjusted to receive 
the stimulation. The slightest touch nearly crazes the 
"nervous" person; flickering lights, uncertain but low 
sounds, and indeterminate skin-sensations are intensely 
disagreeable to all. 

Intensity of Sensations and Intensity of Pleasure-Pain. 
— The relations existing between the varying amounts 
of the sensation-processes and the amounts of resulting 
pleasures or pains are not correctly expressed by Fechner's 
law. These relations are much too indefinite and complex 
to be handled by so simple a mathematical formula. In 
general, the varying intensities of our pleasure-pains do not 



FEELING AS PLEASURE-PAIN 



103 



stand to the varying intensities of our sensations as the vary- 
ing intensities of the sensations stand to the varying intensi- 
ties of the stimuli. It is no unmeaning figure of speech, 
when we say that a soul, with subtle and changing capaci- 
ties and habits of feeling and of self-control, "stands 
between " the physical stimulation and the tone of feel- 
ing evoked. 

Beaunis has tried to represent the dependence of pleasure-pains 
upon the intensity of sensations by the following scheme: — 



10 

1 1 


20 
1 


30 40 
1 1 


50 60 70 80 

1 1 1 1 


90 
1 


100 


Stadium 

of 

no sensation 


"o ° 

1 1 


7 B 

Threshold 

of 

pleasure 


Stadium of pleasure 


2 
J3 

H 


Stadium 
of 
pain 



The following figure (No. 10), which is adapted from Ziehen, who 
adapted it from Wundt, may serve to compare the results of experi- 
ment on this subject with Fechner's law. [Here E min. and E max. 




E Min 



ElVlax 



represent the maximum and the minimum intensities of the stimu- 
lation. The abscissa line is the threshold, between pain, whose curve 
is below, and pleasure, whose curve is above. The continuous line 
shows the relation between intensity of sensation and intensity of 
stimulus. The dotted line represents the pleasure-pain series.] 



104 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Theory of "Cardinal Value." — It is an ingenious view of 
Wundt that the maximum amount of pleasure attached to 
any sensation arises where the sensation ceases to increase 
in simple proportion to the strength of the stimulus. 
This place he calls the point of "cardinal value," because 
it is the place where the sensation is most valuable for 
purposes of perception. This theory introduces the idea 
of final purpose into our most fundamental experiences 
with the pleasure-pain series. It affirms that all sensuous 
pleasure-pains are relative to the amount of cognition we 
get through our sensations. They somehow serve the 
ends of knowledge. In this connection it should be 
noticed how the failure of weak and unsteady sensations 
to help in securing the ends of perception is, in part, the 
explanation of the pain which accompanies them. They 
provoke and yet evade the focusing upon them of attentive 
and discriminating consciousness. 

Kinds of Pleasure-Pains. — The use of the same words to 
express all forms of the agreeable and the disagreeable in 
our affective experience compels us at first to neglect very 
important differences. We have already referred to the 
fact that popular usage applies the word "pain" only to 
rather intensely disagreeable bodily sensations. Among 
the various senses even, the pains and pleasures are such 
as to suggest varying our expressions. As Lotze has 
remarked : " Colors and their contents merely excite 
satisfaction or dissatisfaction ; dissonances of tones cause 
suffering to the hearer personally; the pleasure and pain 
of smell and taste are much more intensive ; but it is only 
in the skin, which of itself alone furnishes little cogni- 
tion (?), and in the interior parts, which contribute to 
cognition nothing whatever, that the pain assumes the 
character of physical suffering." That some such dis- 
tinction exists, there is no doubt. But we think that 
Lotze has not expressed the distinction precisely. 



FEELING AS PLEASUBE-PAIN 105 

In this connection the great differences which charac- 
terize different individuals deserve another notice. To 
some persons unaesthetical arrangements of color cause 
more disagreeable modifications of consciousness than do 
sharp bodily pains. And to take less striking idiosyn- 
crasies : The ear of the Greeks scarcely tolerated the im- 
perfect consonances of the Major and Minor Third. But 
Handel accepted "Fourths," and Beethoven "Fifths"; 
while the modern Wagnerian music is full of "jargons" 
of tones which its devotees claim to find delightful. The 
Japanese are agreeably impressed by intervals which are 
almost intolerable to us — partly, perhaps, because of the 
association of such tones with the sad and weird sounds 
of nature. 

" Value " as applied to Pleasure-Pains. — Modern biology 
is fond of claiming that the hideous "bulk " of our painful 
skin-sensations accords with the principle of evolution. 
In the "ancestral worm-like " forms from which its theory 
would derive man, such strong reactions might have had 
a "beneficial tendency." Doubtful as this theory is, it 
suggests the same teleological view of pleasure-pain which 
Wundt's theory of "cardinal value " espouses. What we 
are interested to notice here, however, has connections 
which will appear later on. Mere intensity of pleasure or 
pain does not seem to serve for the sole estimate of the place 
which the pleasure-pain series has in the development of human 
mental life. Using as a standard the mere amount of pain, 
most men might agree with Heine: "If I had my choice 
between a bad conscience and a bad tooth, I should choose 
the former; " or with the cynical French maxim that "the 
chief conditions of happiness are good digestion and no 
conscience." But ideal pains and pleasures are not com- 
parable with sensuous pains and pleasures, merely as regards 
intensity. In estimating these higher feelings we are 
guided by more complicated standards of. value. 



106 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Are there So-called " Natural" Pains? — It is the tendency 
of all biological or physiological theories to assume that 
painful states of consciousness, however slightly so, are 
abnormal. It is difficult for them to admit that what 
is "bad" for the organism should be agreeable, or that 
what is "good" for the organism should be disagreeable. 
This is one of numerous instances where natural science 
tends to the belief that what ought to be so is so. The 
psychologist, however, seems compelled to admit the 
existence of absolutely unpleasant sensations (i.e., sen- 
sations that are disagreeable without regard to their 
intensity or to the vital interests of the organism). Thus 
M. Beaunis holds that certain odors, savors, sounds, and 
tactual impressions, qualitatively considered, are normally 
disagreeable. The behavior of infants would seem to 
indicate this. The intrinsically painful character of cer- 
tain feelings of relation has been already shown. Here, 
indeed, the principle of maladjustment to the previous 
condition, and so of danger to the organism, must, in 
general, be applicable. The way that incoming sensory 
processes interrupt the smooth flowing of the current of 
consciousness determines the pleasure-pain character of 
the accompanying feelings. But even this would seem 
to imply that some of the necessary nerve-conditions of 
our intellectual processes are "naturally" painful. 

When we come to consider the more complex states of 
feeling with which ethics chiefly deals, the problem grows 
more complicated. Anger and revenge seem to be natu- 
rally agreeable, rather than the reverse, if the intensity 
of the emotions is not too great. For "weak hearts" and 
"tender consciences " these passions are painful. But we 
find vigorous Martin Luther praising the physical benefit 
he sometimes received from getting mad to the core of 
his being. The savage or the child chases his enemy in 
flight and thrusts him through with a spear or beats him 



FEELING AS PLEASURE-PAIN 107 

with a stick, in a sort of ecstasy of joy. In strong ex- 
citement of feeling of every kind, ivhile the emotional stage 
endures, the normal tone is one of pleasure in the excitement. 
Yet some weak excitements are normally disagreeable. 
And, especially, where education has developed the 
sesthetical attitude toward sensuous pleasures: — 

" A surfeit of the sweetest things 
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings." 

Rhythm of Pleasure-Pain. — In all nerve-processes, and 
in the correlated conscious states, the principle of rhythm 
is apt to appear. The life of the nervous system cannot 
be maintained at a steady uniform pitch. The intermit- 
tent and recurrent character of the simplest pleasures and 
pains is apparent in the behavior of infants; and the 
complex phenomena offered by the affective experience 
of adults show the same principle. Connected with this 
characteristic is the tendency to pass quickly from one 
form of feeling to its opposite. "That extremes meet," 
says Hoffding, " is nowhere better exemplified than in the 
life of feeling, where the sharpest and most important 
contrasts are indigenous." In being born, and bathed, in 
being subjected to all the assaults of nature upon the end- 
organs of sense, as well as in learning to digest its food, 
to use its limbs, and to express and gratify its wants, the 
infant is kept oscillating between pleasure and pain. 

Feelings are not only recurrent, like all other psychic 
phenomena, because they occur in time-form, but they are 
also subject to rhythmic alterations in ways peculiar to 
themselves. None of our pleasure-pains remain at a per- 
fectly uniform tension; they all have what has been called 
" an irregular periodicity. " In not a few cases the periodi- 
city is regular enough to constitute a rhythm. 

Pleasures of Rhythm. — In connection with the rhythmic 
character of pleasure-pains we have to note the natural 



108 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

and cultivated pleasures of rhythm. Periodically recur- 
rent agreeable sensations and ideas have their agreeable 
tone heightened by the feeling of their periodicity. The 
pains of muscular fatigue, of abraded skin, and wearied 
organs of sense, are often submerged in the pleasures of 
rhythm. Such rhythmic movements as dancing, march- 
ing, skipping, etc., are most agreeable movements. The 
periodic "heave-ho" of sailors as they lift anchor, the 
"mark-time" of the Japanese coolies under their burden 
of the heavy foreigner in his sedan chair, and the periodic 
wailing of the workmen as they drive piles or handle 
timbers, are instances here. The pleasures of reading 
and hearing poetry or music are largely of this order. 

" How sour sweet music is, 
When time is broke and no proportion kept." 

Effect of Repetition. — The principle of "cumulation" 
is illustrated in the case of many pleasure-pain experi- 
ences. Experiment shows that the painful feeling caused 
by repeated accommodation, with anxiety, of the eye may 
grow so as to become unbearable. Small irritations 
experienced over and over again may throw the whole 
nervous and psychical mechanism into convulsive and 
agonizing action. But the pleasures of being gently 
stroked, of hearing humming bees or murmuring waters, 
or of being fanned with cool breezes, may be greatly 
enhanced by repetition of their gentle stimulations. 
Here, however, a number of other principles operate to 
modify the result. Such are the law of habit, the long- 
ing for change, the effect of monotony, the idiosyncrasies 
of the individual. Some persons are predisposed to find 
new sensations, ideas, perceptions, or places, unpleasant; 
others esteem novelty the most attractive of all charac- 
teristics of the conscious states. The former prefer the 
mild pleasures bred of familiarity; they are much pained 



FEELING BY ASSOCIATION 109 

at "missing" accustomed sights and sounds and tastes. 
They do not agree with Lamb in estimating highly the 
pleasures of first landing in a foreign country. "The 
fascinating, monotonous minor themes " of the West Indian 
strains which Gottschalk used to play should therefore 
please them greatly. 

Diffusion of Feeling. — It is a psycho-physical principle 
that every state of 'predominatingly pleasurable or painful 
emotion tends to involve the whole area of the brain, and to 
influence an increasing number of the outlying organs through 
the supreme control which this central organ has over all the 
bodily functions. In proof of this principle might be in- 
stanced the extreme nausea which follows certain slightly 
disagreeable smells or tastes, the general depression of 
spirits which a multitude of very small disappointments 
or reverses occasions, the enlivening effect on our entire 
"mood" caused by repeated sniffing of aromatic flavors 
or stimulation of the nostrils with ammonia or eau de 
cologne, the convulsions of laughter into which a series 
of "small" jokes may throw one, etc. On the psychical 
side, as respects the tone of consciousness, what depths 
of despair or heights of contentment may mark the closing 
hours of a day or of a life that has been characterized by 
many little pains or little pleasures ! 

Association and Feeling. — It is difficult always to tell 
just what of our pleasure-pains are primarily connected 
with the sensations, feelings, or ideas, with which we find 
them connected, as a matter of fact, in the later devel- 
opments of mental life. The influence of "association" 
— in the most general use of that word — upon the 
pleasure-pain characteristics of experience is undoubtedly 
enormous. Association seems to reach to the very roots 
of the life of feeling as we are able to study the mani- 
festation of that life in the individual man. Doubtless 
it goes back to the very roots of the life of feeling in the 



110 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

race. This principle is especially interesting and impor- 
tant in its bearing upon the development of ethical, 
sesthetical, and religious feeling. We shall return to its 
consideration after we have prepared ourselves by the 
study of the phenomena of association. 

In this way many experiences, or factors of experiences, which in 
other connections would remain neutral or be positively agreeable, 
become slightly or intensely disagreeable ; and the reverse. For 
example, the sensations produced by contact of cool and slimy objects 
with the skin are usually very unpleasant. In what meaning can we 
call this tone of feeling " natural " to such sensations? It may be in 
certain cases due to painful experiences associated — either in the life 
of the individual or of the race — with certain objects which have 
this "feel." We might well say that the normal reaction of the ner- 
vous system upon certain kinds of skin-sensations is such as to pro- 
duce a painful tone of feeling. Thus the fruits of ancient associations 
of the race have become organized, as it were, into the normal psycho- 
physical mechanism of the individual. On the other hand, we find 
not a few marked exceptions to those antipathies which most infants 
and adults customarily exhibit. And if either insensitiveness or curi- 
osity accounts for the fact that some children enjoy handling snails, 
neither of these will readily account for the fact that some adults 
enjoy the smell of asafoetida or of burnt feathers. 

In closing this chapter it is well again to remind our- 
selves how rich in content, and how influential over the 
entire psychical domain, is the affective side of human 
consciousness. In subsequent chapters the cognition of 
things and the development of the conception of Self will 
be seen to be dependent upon feeling. Psychology which 
neglects these phenomena, or gives them relatively little 
attention, or treats them only so far as they can be made 
the subjects of psycho-physical experiment, is not fitted 
to become the science of the artistic, moral, religious, and 
social soul of man. 

An historical survey of the psychology of the affective aspects and 
development of man's mental life would be very instructive. It is 
undoubtedly our feelings that are of all conscious states, at the same 



FEELING BY ASSOCIATION 111 

time most fluctuating in the individual and most fundamental in 
social matters. We all find our own emotional experiences subject to 
grave and yet sudden changes ; yet it is by virtue of these experi- 
ences that we are most intimately and complexly connected, as mem- 
bers of a race, with its development. Until comparatively recently, 
psychologists gave little attention to the systematic and detailed study 
of human feeling. Various reasons for this relative neglect might be 
assigned. Rousseau, the analyst of the heart, with his keen but mor- 
bid interest in his own emotions and sentiments, did much to awaken 
interest in the subject. Kant's espousal of the tripartite division of 
the soul's faculties, in spite of continuous efforts down to the present 
hour to overthrow it, has resisted the attempt to return to the over- 
estimate which was laid upon " thought " by the psychology of Des- 
cartes and his followers. And if modern experimental psychology 
has met with little success here, and some of its most ardent advo- 
cates have done most to disparage and restrict the psychology of the 
feelings, modern biological science has had the reverse influence. It 
has emphasized and illustrated the truth that men differ less in the 
possession of certain passions, emotions, and sentiments, than in the 
character of their ideas and thoughts. The psychological interest in 
various forms of art, in social studies, and in the scientific study of 
insane or hypnotic emotional states, has laid bare the meagreness of 
the current psychology. It has made forever impossible the reduction 
of the phenomena of feeling, either to variations of intensity in the 
pleasure-pain series, or to the secondary results in consciousness of the 
fusion and association of ideas. 

[Compare, Ladcl : Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 
162-210 ; Hoffding : Outlines of Psychology, pp. 221-307 ; Baldwin : 
Feeling and Will, pp. 89-279 ; Bain : The Emotions and Will, pp. 
1-68. Especially valuable monographs are Marshall : Pain, Pleasure, 
and ^Esthetics ; Stanley : Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling ; 
Beaunis : Les Sensations internes ; Bouillier : Du Plaisir et de la 
Douleur ; Kiilpe : Zur Theorie d. sinnlichen Gefiihle.] 



CHAPTER VI 

CONATION AND MOVEMENT 

There is obvious need of a word that shall stand for 
the third aspect or characteristic of all conscious states, — 
the aspect which is neither sensation, with its objective 
reference, nor feeling regarded as passive condition of 
being. The word " Will " does not wholly satisfy the 
need. For this word is surrounded with many preju- 
dices ; and willing is actually a very complex and highly 
developed kind of activity, whereas we are seeking a word 
for something simple and primary. Recent writers on 
psychology have chosen the word ""conation " to meet this 
need. It may thus be said to stand for the "doing" 
aspect of all mental life. 

Nature of Conation. — The presence of an aspect, or 
factor, called " the conative " must be recognized in all 
psychoses. To be the subject of a conscious state is to 
be doing something. This truth was emphasized by 
speaking of conscious states as "processes," or forms of 
the mental functioning; and, again, by showing that 
attentive and discriminating activity is the accompani- 
ment of all mental life, and the indispensable condition 
of all mental development. Indeed, every sensation, 
idea, or feeling, passively considered, is a sort of chal- 
lenge to. the mind to act, to put forth a volition, to do 
something. We never know, nor feel, that we do not 
also strive and will. Conation enters into al] perception, 
memory, thought, imagination. No state of suffering or 
of happiness is so purely passive, that it is not accepted 
or striven against by that spontaneity of the mind which 
belongs to its very nature. 

112 



CONATION AND MOVEMENT 113 

Conation as Psychical Fact. — We must be content with 
recognition of the fact that all conscious states may, nay 
must, also be regarded as having in them the forthputting 
of the energy of the one subject of them all. This fact 
can only be recognized ; it cannot be explained or reduced 
to greater simplicity. Conation — the word chosen to 
mark the fact — cannot be denned or rendered more intel- 
ligible by use of the most subtle and searching analysis. 
We must, however, be particularly on our guard against 
using this word for anything of a merely biological or 
physiological character. The psychologist means by 
conation to designate a psychical, not a merely physical 
fact. Physiology may, or may not, be justified in speak- 
ing of every amoeba as having "a will of its own." The 
philosophy of Schopenhauer may, or may not, be justified 
in regarding Will as the "Ground" of the world; and 
theology, in regarding each man's will as the core of his 
personality. But psychology means by this word to desig- 
nate a truth which is, primarily, neither physiological nor 
metaphysical, but psychological. It means to designate 
a primary and indubitable datum of consciousness. This 
datum may be expressed as follows : All psychic life mani- 
fests itself to the subject of that life as being, in one of its 
fundamental aspects, his own spontaneous activity. This 
fact (datum) is irreducible and beyond all dispute. 

The use of the word "conation" in psychology is not without 
objections. Still we follow the better course in accepting it and 
confining its use to strictly psychological applications. As long ago 
as Aristotle the distinction between wholly "blind" appetencies and 
intelligent forthputtings of mind was recognized. Kant recognized 
"exertive or conative" power as involved in all psychic life. The 
English writer on ethics, Cudworth, in "A Treatise on Free Will," 
speaks of the " hegemonic of the soul " as it acquires increased control 
over the feelings "byconatives and endeavors." Hamilton adopted 
the word as covering both desire and volition. Sully says : " The 
most obvious common characteristic in this variety of actions or 



114 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

conative processes is that peculiar element which is best marked off 
as active consciousness." And Hbffding speaks of the same thing 
under another term, when he declares : " We speak of volition when- 
ever we are conscious of activity and are not merely receptive. But 
... we never are purely receptive." The common language testifies 
to the same experience when it speaks of "undergoing" suffering. 
I undergo the suffering — by "bracing up " against it and resisting it, 
or by striving to free myself from it and withdrawing attention from 
the painful object. 

Kinds of Conation. — Strictly speaking, there is only one 
sort of conation. For this word marks the bare fact of the 
spontaneity of mind as entering into every phase and 
aspect of its own life. There are, however, an indefinite 
number of stages in the development of conative faculty, 
— all the way from blind, inchoate striving, through inteh- 
ligent desire and effort after perceived or imagined ends, 
to deliberate and spiritual choice of the highest human 
ideals. 

Moreover, conation is uniformly connected with two 
most important classes of effects. These are (1) the 
movements of the bodily members, and (2) the focusing 
and distribution of attention in the field of consciousness. 

Physiological Conditions of Conation. — Even in the lowest 
forms of life it is not as yet possible to explain all move- 
ments as the result of irritating the peripheral parts with 
different forms of external stimuli. It is due to this fact 
that even the amoeba has been said to have a "will of its 
own." In more complex animal structures, as the frog, for 
example, when the spinal cord is severed from its connec- 
tion with the brain, the movements of the limbs as pro- 
duced by the cord are still complicated, but are changed 
in character. They have lost the spontaneity, the uncer- 
tainty, and much of the variety, of the movements of the 
same limbs in the case of the uninjured frog. Such brain- 
less movements are commonly said to be "reflex." If we 
leave the lower parts of the brain of the frog — the medulla 



CONATION AND MOVEMENT 115 

and the optic lobes — attached to the cord, the movements 
of the mutilated animal become more complicated. When 
stroked, it will now croak with the regularity of a music- 
box ; it will perform, in the most orthodox fashion, many 
remarkable feats in the coordination of its muscles. But, 
apparently, these movements are definite responses only 
to the changing quantities and places of application of 
the external stimulus. The movements of the full-brained 
frog are not thus definite, regular, and explicable as the 
effects of irritation from without. One can never tell 
whether it will leap or croak in response to a given stimu- 
lation; and if it leaps at all, one is doubtful as to the 
direction and amount of its movement. 

This power of the central nervous masses to initiate 
movements which cannot be ascribed wholly to external 
stimulation is called " automatism. " Physiological autom- 
atism is the physiological condition of the psychical fact 
called conation. In other words : Automatic (or centrally 
initiated^) ?iervous activity is the peculiar physiological cor- 
relate of active consciousness, of the conative element in all 
psychic life. In man's case, it is apparently the autom- 
atism of the centres of the brain which furnishes the 
physical basis of his conscious life of volition. The proof 
of this conclusion, however, would take us too far into 
the details of physiological psychology. 

Psychological Expression of Conative Consciousness. — I act 
and I know that I act — this as truly as I see, hear, feel 
pleasure or pain, and know that I have the sensations and 
am subject to the pleasure or pain. In the very seeing, 
hearing, feeling, and knowing of myself in these states, 
I am active. For psychology, active consciousness is iden- 
tical with consciousness of activity. Hence the motto: 
"In Willing we work, but Wishes play with us." This 
factor of all conscious states is experienced as determining 
changes in the states immediately following. 



116 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

In changes of the relations of bodily members, and in 
the flow of ideas within the so-called "stream of con- 
sciousness," there is much which appears to be done in 
and for us, rather than by us. Thus one winds one's watch 
almost or quite unconsciously, and one is awakened to 
the fact that one has been winding it by the unpleasant 
sensations which follow trying to keep on turning the 
key when the watch is wound up. The educated physi- 
cal " automaton "will do a great many things for us better 
than we can do them for ourselves. But any turning of 
our attention from the train of thinking, in the conducting 
of which we have previously been active, to the character of 
the doings of the automaton, at once abolishes the train 
of thinking and profoundly alters the motor activities. 
The latter then become our doings, in a new meaning of 
the words. For example, one is thinking about one's 
money matters with a direction of conscious attention to 
the business in hand : one comes to the door of one's study 
and "automatically" takes from the pocket a bunch of 
keys and attempts to apply a particular key, automatically 
selected, to the door of the study; one awakes with sur- 
prise and confusion to find that the automaton has tried 
to open this door with the key of the box in a safety- 
deposit. We, then, think at once of the cause of the error 
and consciously select the proper key. In general, active 
consciousness, with its dominant of conation, is regularly fol- 
lowed by modifications of sensation, feeling, and movement. 

Prior to all debate over the problem of will, as between the advo- 
cates and the opponents of determinism, is the immediate recognition 
of the significance of conative consciousness. Conscious activity, as 
tinged by the feeling of being resisted, is called "striving." As fur- 
ther darkened and loaded with a burden of muscular sensations, it 
becomes the "sense of effort." Thus our conative consciousness is, 
at the same time, both spontaneity of activity and consciousness of 
activity, and also consciousness of being resisted. This is equally 
true whether the striving, as regarded from the point of view of the 



CONATION AND MOVEMENT 117 

ends aimed at, be successful or not. " Hold still," the mother or 
nurse says to the restless child whom she is dressing; so the surgeon 
to the patient writhing under pain. " I am trying to " is the proper 
reply ; and it matters not whether it be added — " but I can't, or " and 
I will." 

Feeling of Effort. — It has been customary with some 
writers to make the consideration of the active side of 
consciousness depend too exclusively on the position taken 
with reference to the origin and character of the " feeling 
of effort." The reason for this is impressive and obvious 
enough. If I strive with all my might to move some 
heavy obstacle (and I can, of course, do this only as I am 
resisted), I have the most indubitable and intense convic- 
tion that / am putting forth an immense amount of energy 
which is, in some peculiar ivay, my own. A similar impres- 
sion is unavoidable when I "try very hard" to attend to 
the minute details of some object of perception, or to think 
out a complicated and difficult problem. 

Here we are reminded at once that this feeling of exert- 
ing force depends in a large degree upon our actual weak- 
ness rather than upon our actual strength. Experiment 
shows more precisely, the same thing which common 
experience clearly suggests, that fatigue, soreness, and 
inefficiency of the external mechanism, and a variety of 
other sensory conditions, in general increase this feeling 
of effort. The men of really strong wills, in the more 
perfect control of strong bodies, feel the outgoing of their 
strength little or not at all. This experience suggests 
the truth that it is the consciousness of the condition 
of the skin, muscles, joints, breathing apparatus, and 
vaso-motor processes, which determines the feeling of 
effort. In other words, tense skin, swelling and hardened 
muscles, tightened tendons, jaws set and hands clenched, 
or other joints pressed together, the increased laborious 
action of the heart, and the harder breathing, etc., are 



118 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

what we feel when we imagine ourselves to be doing a 
big deed of willing. 

That many important elements of the so-called "feeling 
of effort " are sensory and have a peripheral origin, there 
is no longer any doubt. Not a few writers now claim that 
all the elements of this impressive modification of con- 
sciousness, in which we seem to come to the fullest possi- 
ble realization of ourselves as active, are purely sensory 
and passive. It is difficult to devise an experimental 
means for determining how far, if at all, this feeling is 
dependent upon centrally initiated and outgoing motor 
processes. But a careful weighing of all the evidence 
leads us to the following conclusions: (1) Physiologically 
considered, the feeling of effort is of a mixed origin. It 
is partly dependent upon an increased molecular activity, 
a "faster life," of the brain-centres which is centrally 
initiated; and partly upon the more intense and massive 
sensory processes set up in the changed condition of the 
periphery. (2) Psychologically considered, the feeling 
of effort is also a complex and mixed psychosis. It is 
partly dependent upon an increased consciousness of the 
conative sort, a profounder and more massive feeling of the 
Self as being alive ; and, partly, upon an increase in the 
sensory experience which comes from things resisting 
the active Self. 

The question whether the feeling of effort is merely a mixture of 
sensations of the skin, joints, muscles, etc., or is also a phase of active 
consciousness, due to centrally initiated and out-going motor processes 
of the brain, has been much debated. It is a question of no small 
importance. Professor James was among the first to take the view 
which ascribes this feeling wholly to an origin in sensation-experience. 
Ferrier, Miinsterberg, G. E. Miiller, and others, have held the same 
view. The opposite view, which is also our own, has been stoutly 
and intelligently maintained by Bain, Wundt, Beaunis, Preyer, and 
many more. 

The reasons for holding the view adopted above are among others, 



CONATION AND MOVEMENT 119 

the following: (1) From the earliest dawn to the latest development 
of mental life, it would appear that no -purely " reflex " and no purely 
"automatic" nervous £>rocesses take place in the human brain. The 
two kinds of processes are ceaselessly conjoined ; experiment can 
never wholly disentangle them. From the first, the brain is itself all 
alive, and yet responsive to sensory impressions coming from without. 
(2) Automatic activities with an outcome of movement undoubtedly 
take place in the brains of all the more highly organized animals. 
Preyer points out that even the embryonic child often moves under 
circumstances unfavorable to accounting for the movement as a result 
of sensory impulses. The crying, and kicking, and squirming, of the 
new-born infant seem to be, in part, the natural motor expression of 
its self-active nervous centres. (3) The sensory and motor elements, 
areas, and functions in the human brain cannot be kept apart. And 
to suppose that the processes which innervate the muscles have no 
correlate in consciousness is to go contrary to our most enlightened 
view of the whole field of physiological psychology. Thus much 
from the physiological point of view. 

(4) There are various experimental proofs which favor the same 
conclusion as to the nature of the feeling of effort, psychologically 
considered : (a) The complex feeling of effort does not appear to run 
parallel in intensity with the actual movement accomplished by 
contracting the muscles, compressing the joints, etc. (b) Patients 
afflicted with paralysis of the periphery still have the feeling of effort 
in a manner to indicate that it is partially of a central origin, (c) The 
rapidity of certain minute voluntary adjustments, like those of the 
larynx in singing, seems to indicate that "the outgoing currents must 
be measured out in advance of our feeling of the effects." (d) Sing- 
ers, with the sensitiveness of the larynx diminished or destroyed by 
cocaine, have still been able to sing correctly, (e) Baldwin's " dis- 
covery that right-handedness develops in infancy only under condi- 
tions of muscular effort " seems to favor this view. Its more obvious 
explanation is that a " vague consciousness of greater motor readi- 
ness," dependent upon the condition of the brain-centre, anticipates 
and guides the movement. (/) In judging the difference between 
movements willed and those actually executed we seem to be depend- 
ent on our estimate of the strength of the "impulse to action" 
rather than upon our estimate of the actual amount of movement of 
the active organ. 

Conation and Movements. — Bodily movement and the 
focusing and distributing of attention are most closely 



120 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

related. So close is the relation that some have claimed: 
"Attention acts only upon muscles and through muscles." 
There is, indeed, reason to believe that the fixation of 
attention is necessarily correlated with the irritation of 
the so-called "striated" muscle-fibre. As attention wan- 
ders, or is voluntarily redistributed, the particular mus- 
cles or groups of muscles irritated are constantly changing. 
But the focusing and fixation and distribution of atten- 
tion is identical with a large part (if not with the whole) 
of the changing life of conation. The one psycho-physical 
principle of the greatest importance in this connection may 
then be stated as follows : All forms of sensory, emotional, 
and ideational excitement in the brain tend to overflow the 
centres and areas in which they originate, to flow down the 
connected motor tracts, and thus to set in movement the dif- 
ferent parts of the motor apparatus. 

Classes of Movements. — The more elaborate classification 
of movements takes into account the development of all 
our mental life. In understanding the nature of the fol- 
lowing classes, therefore, much that is to be explained 
later must be assumed. With this concession in mind 
we may classify all man's movements as follows : (1) Ran- 
dom automatic movements, or such as originate chiefly in 
mere conation (" blind will ") without definite influence 
from any particular form of sensation, idea, or feeling. 
The aimlessly squirming bodily mass of the new-born 
infant is a type of such movements. (2) Sensory -motor 
movements are those whose chief psychical excitant con- 
sists in some form of sensation. The child reaching its 
hand toward the light of the candle, or kicking when it 
feels the pin-prick, illustrates this class. But such move- 
ments may be called (3) JEsthetico -motor, if, as usually 
happens, they are responsive to the excitement of feelings 
with a positive tone of either pleasure or pain. Where 
conation excites and determines movement, but without 



CONATION AND MOVEMENT 121 

intelligent or deliberate seeking of an end, we may speak 
of (4) Impulsive movements. But whenever the sensa- 
tions, feelings, and resulting movements are related to 
an end connected with the preservation and propagation 
of the species, we call the movements (5) Instinctive. 
Such movements as emphasize the realization of some idea 
present in consciousness may then be called (6) Ideo-motor. 
A combination of the first three forms of excitement may 
result in complex and expressive coordinations of the 
muscles that are directed, not by any conscious idea, but 
according to a pattern set by some adult of the same 
species. These are commonly spoken of as (7) Imitative 
movements. In infants of a certain stage of development, 
smile answers in imitation of smile, frown of frown, 
grimace of grimace, etc. To the general principle of sug- 
gestion, as involved in such movements, we shall have 
need to recur again. 

That " every state of consciousness tends to realize itself in an appro- 
priate muscular movement " has been called a law of " mental dynamo- 
genesis " by Fere, Baldwin, and others. This law is illustrated in the 
case of each of the classes of movements mentioned above. The 
human animal is not made to keep still ; the human animal cannot 
keep still. Not to move in any manner, or in the slightest degree, is 
to undergo a temporary death. The embryo moves in the womb; 
the sleeping child rolls " aimlessly hither and thither when fast 
asleep." Every smell is a challenge to sniff the air into, or blow it 
out from, the nasal passages. Every taste provokes the tongue to try 
the substance by rolling it about. Strong pain throws men into con- 
vulsions ; they leap and dance with intense rage or joy. In the insane 
asylum the patients afflicted with " depression of spirits " move slowly, 
or sink their heads upon their breast, let arms and legs lie flabby, 
or fall " all in a heap." 

The fainter feelings and sensations provoke us to the movements 
which are necessary to define them more closely. Every vivid idea 
of doing anything produces a state of tension in the muscles needed 
for doing that thing ; if it does not also throw them into a state of 
actual and obvious movement. The "ideo-motor" kinds of movement 
are innumerable ; they are the movements which record the influences 



122 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

of suggestion in the dreamer, in tlie hypnotic subject, and in the wak- 
ing activities of daily life. Tell the person in a state of hypnosis that 
he is drinking ink instead of water and he begins to gag and spew 
appropriately. But if he has the " idea " that he is drinking lemon- 
ade instead of vinegar, he smacks his lips accordingly. The child 
gets control of its own muscles under influence from the same princi- 
ple. Preyer affirms that he noticed a child of only fifteen weeks 
" making attempts to purse the lips when I did it close in front of 
him." We all tend to smile at others smiling ; and sounds of weep- 
ing, or of that "woe" to which Thackeray makes reference in his 
Essay on Crossing the English Channel, are apt to elicit similar motor 
reactions in us. 

Development of Motor Consciousness. — Certain psycho- 
physical principles furnish conditions to the growth of the 
mind's experience as connected with the control of the 
bodily organism. The following three may be noted here : 
(1) The principle of interference. Certain muscles and 
coordinated groups of muscles cannot be moved simul- 
taneously. When the sensations, feelings, or ideas, which 
tend to set such muscles into action occur in rapid suc- 
cession or in confused conflict within the same field of 
consciousness, they inhibit each other. We may feel like 
laughing or crying; we do not know which. But we must 
actually laugh and cry by turns. 

(2) The principle of fatigue causes the cessation of 
movements when they have been long continued or exe- 
cuted with a high degree of energy. It also operates to 
select those which are to get the "upper hand" in the 
struggle for existence. In general, we prefer to move in 
the easier of two possible directions. 

(3) The principle of habit prevails in the entire realm 
of bodily movements. 

Importance of the Life of Movement. — His mental develop- 
ment and all the well-being of man is dependent upon the 
control of the muscles of the body, in a very fundamental 
and important way. If man were not a moving organism, 



CONATION AND MOVEMENT 123 

expressive of and obedient to his own conative conscious- 
ness, he could never arrive at a knowledge of things or 
attain a condition of mastery over them. We shall see 
later on that it is no more possible to explain perception 
by the senses without taking into account a moving eye 
and a moving hand, and, indeed, an entire equipment of 
movable organs, than it is to explain the same development 
as the result of impressions upon a passive tabula rasa. 
It is when we will the occurrence of changes in the parts 
of our own bodies, and through their movements effect 
changes in things, that we learn both to know our own 
bodies and things external to our bodies. The training 
of the life of bodily movements is, then, a most important 
part of education. 

[The more advanced student of this subject should inform himself 
as to the phenomena of automatic reaction and reaction-time. See 
Ladd's Elements of Physiological Psychology, Part I, chaps, iv and 
vii, and Part IT, chaps, i, ii, ix, and x. For the general phenomena of 
conation compare the Psychologies of James (II, xxvi), Hoffding (vii, 
A and B), and Baldwin (II, xii-xv). Important monographs are the 
following: Spitta: Die Willensbestimmungen ; Mach : Grundlinien d. 
Lehre von d. Bewegungsempfindungen ; Miinsterberg : Die Willens- 
handlung.] 



CHAPTER VII 

IDEATION 

Unless the later conscious states could, in some sort, 
"represent" or stand for the earlier, there could be no 
continuity or development to the mental life. A stream 
of consciousness cannot be a flow of disconnected and 
independent psychoses. The effects of previous experi- 
ences inevitably show themselves in every new experi- 
ence — however original such experience may seem to be. 
Without memory of my own I have no past for myself; 
and I can have no past for any one else unless it be in 
the memory of this other one. But memory is correctly 
spoken of as representative faculty, par excellence. Neither 
in the wildest play of fancy, in dreams, in the vagaries 
of the hypnotized and of the insane, nor in the most 
purely creative imagination of the originator in art, 
invention, or speculative thought, can mental life get on 
without making use of "stuff" derived from its previous 
conscious states. 

The elementary and universal mental process involved 
in all work or play of representative faculty is called 
" Ideation." And for lack of a better term we shall speak 
of the products of this process as " mental images " or 
"ideas." 

Nature of the Representative Image or Idea. — What are 
the principal characteristics of this elementary represen- 
tative process, and so what is the nature of the mental 
image or idea, can be best understood by carefully attend- 
ing to the events in consciousness immediately after the 
stimulus is withdrawn from any organ of sense. Let the 
124 



NATURE OF AN IDEA 125 

question now be asked: How is the experience modified 
in character on the attempt being made to call it back? 
Plainly, it is not the sensation itself, or the perception 
itself, which is called back. It is a much modified mental 
process which answers this call. Instead of the sensation 
we have in consciousness the idea of the sensation ; instead 
of the perceived object, we have the image of the object. 

Here, as elsewhere, the popular (and even the so-called 
vulgar) use of words is most true to life, because fresh 
from a living experience. The usage of the people does 
not hesitate to say: "I have no idea how that rose 
smelled; " or, "I cannot get rid of the idea of that nasty- 
tasting beef." In such usage the word idea stands for 
a mental process which may be regarded as more or less 
faithfully reproducing some form of actual experience. 
When the complaint is made, " I have no idea " of the soul, 
or of God, this means that these objects are not repre- 
sentable in satisfactory terms of previous experiences. 

An entirely fit word for the elementary representative process, 
regarded as a psychical product, will probably not be found. In 
Latin the noun imago might be applied to a " mask," an " appari- 
tion," a " ghost," or a " phantom." In all these cases it meant some- 
thing which is recognizably like, but really is not, something else. 
This meaning adapts it admirably to several important aspects of 
the representative process. Yet the word " image " is most obviously 
fitted to express our experience with the eyes. We see images; but 
to speak of images of smell, taste, muscular, tactual, and joint sensa- 
tions, seems inappropriate. It sounds odd also to refer to the image 
of the symphony heard last night. 

Similar objections may be made to the word li idea," which is from 
a Greek word nearly equivalent to the Latin word species. These ob- 
jections have to yield, however, to the psychologist's demand for some 
term which shall express the elementary process and product of repre- 
sentation — the bringing up in consciousness again of what has, in 
some sort, been there before. And the excellent suggestiveness of such 
derivatives as "ideation," "ideate," etc., is an additional advantage 
coming from the use of the word " idea." 



126 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

After-images. — In studying the nature of the idea and 
of the process of ideation, it is well to begin with the 
phenomena of "after-images." The sensations of all the 
different senses show substantially the same phenomena; 
but in the sense of sight they are more obvious and more 
successfully studied. For example, let one look fixedly 
at a candle or at a brightly colored spot, and then note 
what follows on closing the ey^es. The immediate impres- 
sion, which lingers an instant, will so closely resemble a 
sensation as respects intensity, life-likeness, and objective 
reference, that it seems more properly called an "after- 
sensation" It is indeed due to the lingering effect of the 
external stimulation. 

On making the above experiment, the strongly sensuous 
after-image soon begins to waver, to intermit, and finally 
disappears. It is then difficult or impossible to force the 
revival of anything exactly like it. Suppose, now, that 
we try to reproduce a concrete conscious state as nearly 
like this former sensuous experience as possible, but with- 
out receiving again the external stimulus. According to 
our excellence of power as " visualizers," the result will 
be a more or less successful representation of the previous 
experience. This may be called a "memory image of first 
intention." It must not be confounded either with the 
after-sensation or with the conception of — the "thought 
about" — a candle, a bright spot. 

Fading of the Memory-Image. — The effect of time on the 
character of the representative image or idea may be in- 
vestigated experimentally. The memories of the greater 
part of our sensations, feelings, and volitions quickly pass 
away, perhaps never to return. But, as we shall see later, 
they all leave some sort of impress on the character of the 
stream of consciousness. For example, let one be aroused 
from an absorbing occupation to tell what trivial event 
has just fallen under his eye or happened within his ear- 



NATURE OF AN IDEA 127 

shot, and if the question be asked not more than 2 sec. to 
10 sec. after the event, it may be answered correctly. 
But if the memory-image has been fading for a longer 
time than this, it will probably be gone beyond recall. 

Weber found that the primary image of weight sank so rapidly as to 
be almost gone in 10 sec. ; and Lehmann found that a shade of gray 
could be recognized with certainty only so long as the interval did 
not exceed 60 sec. In testing his memory for " nonsense-syllables " 
another observer (Ebbinghaus) decided that after one hour half the 
original amount of work must be done in order to relearn a series, 
once learned before ; after eight hours relearning required two-thirds 
of the original work. From these experiments this observer at- 
tempted to derive a law for the fading of the memory-image : " The 
ratio of what is forgotten to what is retained is inversely as the log- 
arithm of the time." 

On the other hand, the intensity and life-likeness of certain mem- 
ory-images persist in consciousness to a remarkable degree, for an 
indefinite time. Dr. Moos tells of a patient whose acoustic images 
persisted with the vividness of sensations fifteen days after a musical 
seance. M. Baillarger, after working on brain preparations with a 
fine gauze over them, would for a long time see the image of the gauze 
covering other objects in the field of perception. Another worker in 
science, when walking the streets of Paris, frequently saw the images 
of the objects he had been working with, projected upon surrounding 
things. 

Revival of the Memory-Image. — The laws of the revival 
of the memory-image are closely connected with the laws 
of its fading. Both are related to the psychology of volun- 
tary recollection. In general we may say that the accuracy 
and certainty or definiteness of the revival of our repre- 
sentative iniages vary inversely as the amount of their 
fading. This subject admits of a certain degree of experi- 
mental determination. For example, suppose that one 
moves the arm through a definite space, and then, after a 
given time (10 sec), tries to guide one's self by the 
memory-image of the muscular sensations so as to move 
the arm through exactly the same space. Repeated experi- 



128 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

ment shows two results : (1) the idea of the distance has 
changed; perhaps it will be made, on the average, only 
nine-tenths as much as it should be. But (2) the idea of 
the distance has become fluctuating and uncertain; the 
results vary considerably when compared among them- 
selves. By carrying out the same method of experiment 
with longer intervals (20 sec, a minute, etc.), the rela- 
tions between the decreasing accuracy and definiteness of 
the revival, on the one hand, and the increased fading of 
the mental image through lapse of time, on the other hand, 
may be investigated. 




The accompanying diagram (No. 11), constructed by Dr. Scripture 
on the basis of experiments in the Yale laboratory, shows that the 
increase in inaccuracy and the increase in indefiniteness follow 
different courses. Thus the horizontal line marks the interval of 
time up to 20 sec. ; the line that first rises and then falls shows how 
the standard distance was first overestimated and then increasingly 
underestimated ; and the line that rises constantly shows how the 
amount of indefiniteness constantly increased. 

Apparently the changes in the accuracy of the revival of the 
memory-images of sense are a more individual affair and vary with 
different persons, and the changes in indefiniteness or uncertainty are 
more fixed and belong to all cases. 

Physiological Conditions of Ideation. — The most funda- 
mental laws of all living structure furnish the physio- 
logical conditions of the representative process in the 



NATURE OF AN IDEA 129 

mental life of man. These laws have to do with the 
metabolism, cell-propagation, nutrition, and growth of 
the nervous system; and especially of the brain. There 
is, indeed, a mischievous fallacy, against which we shall 
enter our protest in discussing the nature of recollection, 
lurking in the phrase "organic memory." But there is 
also a most important and indubitable truth emphasized by 
this phrase. Every human brain has a history which is, 
figuratively speaking, written on it in characters of the 
impressions it has received and the uses to which it has 
been put. This history is formed under the principles of 
habit, growth, and tendency. What it has done, in the 
way of past reactions to external and internal stimuli, has 
grown into its very structure ; this characteristic growth 
is the embodiment of its habits and the dictation of its 
tendencies. It may be still plastic. Indeed, to lose all 
plasticity would be to cease to live as a brain; but its 
habitual ways of behavior in the past give ever-increas- 
ingly strong conditions to its plasticity. 

"Inorganic tendencies" of a molecular kind are familiar enough 
to physics as existing in all kinds of bodies. Even a good old Cre-- 
mona violin " stores " in its structure, as a sort of inorganic memory, 
certain molecular alterations of its wood}' fibre. The practice of 
modern photography depends upon the fact that a plate of dry col- 
lodion, or other preparation, when exposed for an instant to rays of 
light, retains afterwards the effects of the changes thus produced in 
its minute particles. But these tendencies only faintly foreshadow 
those of which we find organic bodies capable. Every cell is an 
aggregate of particles which, in their chemical constitution, arrange- 
ments, and habits of reaction, retains its own past experience as a 
cell. And the cells propagated from it receive (or " inherit ") its 
subtle and invisible tendencies. 

But especially is the nervous system, and above all the human 
brain, a storehouse of tendencies, or " dynamical associations," depend- 
ent upon the previous history of all its elements in their manifold 
relations to each other. These elements, having acted together in 
a certain way, tend to act together in a similar way. In every por- 



130 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

tion "the whole curve slumbers." Now we know by experimental 
and other evidence, to which reference will be made later on, that the 
cortical centres concerned in sensation and in ideation are the same 
for the same objects. Hence is derived, as from our entire conception 
of the nature of the nervous mechanism, this principle : The mechan- 
ism of representative images, as they occur and recur in connection with 
each other, has its physiological conditions in certain " dynamical associa- 
tions" amongst the nervous elements of the brain-centres. 

Variable Characteristics of Ideas (Mental Images). — The 
different representative images differ among themselves 
in several important ways. Of these characteristic differ- 
ences the more important may be summed up under three 
heads: (1) Intensity, (2) life-likeness, or "fulness of 
content," and (3) objectivity. By the first of these three 
characteristics is understood the sensuous vivacity of the 
idea; its pungency, so to speak, or ability to take com- 
mand of the attention and force a focusing of attention 
upon itself. By the life-likeness of an idea is understood 
its ability to represent the original in all the concrete par- 
ticulars which belong to that original. Life-like ideas 
are more content-full, less meagre and "schematic," than 
are those that lack life. By the objectivity of an idea is 
meant the amount of conscious reference which it carries, 
so to speak, to some actual experience, either with things 
or with ourselves, as furnishing the real basis of the pro- 
cess of representation. Thus we speak of ideas of real 
objects as distinguished from mere ideas. The distinc- 
tion is, indeed, one of degrees — of amounts of objectivity. 
And it is the tone of feeling which fuses with the idea 
that largely determines the objectivity of any idea. 

These three characteristics of ideas — intensity, life- 
likeness, objectivity — are closely related in every elaborate 
representative process. Ideas of very simple sensations, or 
of bodily feelings, by mere increase of intensity become 
objective, and so indistinguishable from sensations. But 
in the case of complex objects of perception or of self- 



NATURE OF AN IDEA 131 

consciousness, it is the amount of content which largely 
determines their likeness to life. A vivid idea of the cut 
of a knife may become a localized bodily pain as if one 
were being really cut with a knife. But an idea of a 
dead or absent friend would have to possess something 
more than mere vividness to seem like that friend; it 
would have to possess richness of content. 

Intensity of Ideas. — Some distinguished psychologists 
have denied that ideas have intensity. Others have made 
their chief or only point of difference from sensations and 
perceptions a "fainter" degree of intensity. Both opin- 
ions are clearly wrong. 

Thus Lotze maintains that "the idea of the brightest radiance 
does not shine, that of the intensest noise does not sound, that of the 
greatest torture produces no pain," etc. And Ziehen declares: "The 
ideas of the slightest rustling and of the loudest thunder exhibit no 
difference in intensity whatever." These sentences involve a curious 
and even absurd misapprehension. From the psychologist's point of 
view we might as well say that the sensation of brightness does not 
shine, etc. Surely the sensation " of green " is not to be called a 
green sensation, any more than the idea " of blue " is to be called 
a blue idea. But surely also the idea of the bright sun, if it is truly 
a " representative " idea, differs intensively from the idea of faintest 
dawn — differs, that is, in some way which stands for a difference in 
amount of light-qualification, — in the intensity of psychic energy 
corresponding to the idea. 

The misapprehension just noticed may be corrected by 
calling attention to the important distinction between 
"thinking about" things and "calling up ideas" of 
things. I may think about whispers and thunder, and 
about sun and candle, without being conscious of any even 
faintly sounding image of whisper or of thunder, or faintly 
glowing image of sun or of candle. But even this absence 
of intensive qualification will usually be found to involve 
the fact that the actual representative content of conscious- 
ness does not, in such a case, consist of similar acoustic 



132 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

or visual images at all. In such cases the actual stream 
of consciousness is probably a train of thought supported 
by a succession of words. 

Certainly it is not every one that can visualize the idea 
of the sun so intensely as actually to see its disk in a 
dark prison, as Benvenuto Cellini did. Nor can every 
one rival the English painter who could paint a portrait 
from the mental image of the subject placed before his 
"mind's eye " in a real chair. But every one's experience 
in ideation is governed by the same two general princi- 
ples : (1) Similar activities of the organism are called out, 
though usually in a fainter degree, by the original sensa- 
tion or perception, and by the representative process for 
that particular sensation or perception. (2) Although 
different individuals differ widely in respect of their 
representative processes, and these processes differ greatly 
among themselves, they all have some degree of intensity. 
This is the intensity qualification of the idea or mental 
image, produced. The idea of a person in torture, when 
the idea is intense, is itself a fainter torture. This is 
especially true in the case of highly sensitive and imagi- 
native persons, like Balzac, who could produce, in his 
own body, the sharpest pain of being cut with a knife by 
imagining himself cut. 

In this connection it is pertinent to refer again to (see p. 121 f.) the 
" dynamogenetic value" of ideas. Other considerations being disre- 
garded, ideas move the soul and the body in accordance with their 
varying degrees of intensity. With the requisite intensity they may 
have all the influence, even over the grosser bodily organs, which sen- 
sations and perceptions have. Starting from any particular sensation 
we may trace its fading into the more ideal form of the primary, and 
then of the secondary, mental image. Starting from the most " ideal " 
of mental states we may so increase its intensity and life-likeness as 
to get from it all the effects of sensation and sense-perception. . In 
dreams our mental imagery often takes its rise from misinterpreted 
sensations. But this mental imagery is in turn productive of the 



NATURE OF AN IDEA 133 

appropriate sensations and movements. Thus the dreamer who im- 
agined that a stake was being driven through his foot by burglars, in 
order to account for the sensation of a feather between his toes, saw the 
burglars, felt their tortures, and struggled with them, as clearly and as 
mightily as though his perceptions had been "real." 

Life-likeness of Ideas. — Strictly speaking, we rarely or 
never have an idea of a simple sensation or feeling or 
volition, as such. Hence Dr. Ward is probably right in 
the opinion that a simple visual or tactual experience 
(redness or softness) cannot be reproduced in imagina- 
tion. We ideate perceptions and not unlocalized sensa- 
tions or abstract and disconnected movements; we have 
representative images of things seen or felt. For this 
reason the ideas of things differ from the things as per- 
ceived, in other respects than in mere intensity of the 
process of presentation. .Representative images are not 
experienced as merely fainter copies of the original experi- 
ences. One most important difference between the two 
is that things perceived have a rich and full content, but 
ideas of things are comparatively poor and meagre in con- 
tent. And if we try to render the content of our ideas 
richer and fuller, we have to take time and call up their 
different features one after the other. How different this 
poverty and fluctuating character of detail from that 
immediately present wealth of detail with which the eye, 
and even the hand and the ear, give us their objects ! If 
the objects to be ideated are our own experiences, the 
case is not greatly different. We can live through, in five 
minutes, more than it takes us almost as many hours • to 
reproduce in a succession of memory-images. The u life- 
likeyiess" of the idea is therefore dependent upon its possess- 
ing a richness of content corresponding to its original ; and 
that idea is the most "lifelike" representative of any experi- 
ence lohich most nearly reproduces the complex characteristics 
of its original. 



134 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Objectivity of Ideas. — Different ideas differ greatly in 
the claim which they enforce upon the mind to refer them 
to the world of real existences. Some ideas surely repre- 
sent actual occurrences ; others, equally surely, must be 
regarded as mere products of fancy. Still others we are 
in doubt about; one cannot always tell whether one re- 
members or imagines some particular thing. There are 
also ideas which represent entities that no eye has ever 
seen, or hand handled, but about the reality — the objective 
reference — of which, there may be little or no doubt. 
Such, for the chemist, are his ideas of atoms and chemical 
forces ; such, for the biologist, is his theory of evolution, 
or the history of the changes that have gone on in some 
embryo which has become visible only when it has arrived 
at full development. 

The considerations which influence the mind in making 
this " objective reference " for some ideas, and denying it 
to other ideas, are so many and are so much a matter of 
the entire mental development, that we shall be obliged 
for the present to postpone our treatment of them. 

The " Idea of a Feeling." — Popular usage would seem 
to compel the belief that it is possible to ideate our dif- 
ferent forms of feeling. For do not people commonly 
say: "I had no idea you felt as you do;" or, "Can you 
conceive of any one feeling in such a way?" But what 
sort of a psychosis can the "idea of a feeling" possibly 
be? It has been said that the essential nature of feeling 
is in its being felt; feeling would, therefore, seem to be 
not representable in terms of the idea. A little attention 
to the actual experience in such cases, however, helps us 
to clear up this seeming paradox. Such attention needs 
direction to three important truths : (1) No conscious state 
is a state of mere feeling. There is no original experience 
to come up for reproduction, which has been an experi- 
ence of mere feeling. (2) The representati ve idea is itself 



THE PROCESS OP IDEATION 135 

always a complex conscious process, partly like and partly 
unlike some original conscious process. (3) The so-called 
idea of any past feeling always has an accompaniment of 
feeling similar to the original feeling. 

What happens, then, when we remember or imagine 
(have an " idea of ") some particular affective expe- 
rience is this: the perceptions, thoughts, reasonings, 
actions, etc., which constituted the original intellectual 
aspects of the experience are ideated, and a similar ex- 
citement of feeling accompanies the ideating process. 
Strictly speaking, then, The " idea of a feeling " consists 
of the representative image of the original sensational and 
intellectual accompaniment or cause of the feeling, suffused 
with a revival — usually in fainter degree — of an affective 
condition similar to the original feeling. 

For example, we cannot have the idea of " how-it-hurt " us to have 
that particular tooth pulled, without picturing to ourselves the tooth 
as localized by sensations of touch, — and probably also many of the 
external details (dentist with forceps in hand, chair, etc.), — and then 
feeling over again a much fainter but similarly localized pain. We 
can " think about," how we had that particular tooth out, etc., and 
perhaps escape any revived idea of how we felt. But the idea of the 
feeling can be recalled only by an accompaniment of revived similar 
feeling. Only emotion can represent past emotion. 

The Process of Ideation. — Not only is it true that our 
representative consciousness is not confined to the so-called 
idea of a simple sensation, but it is also true that ideas do 
not occur singly in consciousness. Representative images 
obviously have a certain complexity which may be figura- 
tively spoken of as the result of a " fusion " ; they ordinarily 
occur also in trains, or successions, of greater or smaller 
extension. This means that the complex process of idea- 
tion continues in the stream of consciousness ; and that 
those successive parts of it which discriminating attention 
can grasp together as ideation-states are dependently con- 



136 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

nected together. Once started, we keep on ideating for 
at least a fraction of a minute. The process of ideation is 
essentially a succession of ideas. 

Two general truths, which apply to the entire mental 
life, must be appealed to in every attempt to account for 
the continuous and connected process of ideation. These 
are the following: (1) The circuit of every field of con- 
sciousness is made by the very nature of mental life a limited 
affair. Not more than so many ideas, nor more than so 
much complexity of any one idea, can come within the 
grasp of one consciousness, even in the best estate of 
human psychical energy. (2) All the partial ideation- 
processes have a modifying influence upon each other in the 
formation of the complex and continuous process of ideation. 
The principle of relativity, in an active and effective 
manner, applies to all the objects in any one field of 
consciousness, to all the factors in any one mental state. 

It follows from the two foregoing principles that every 
representative state of consciousness may be regarded as 
a sort of "resultant" which includes a number of partial 
processes of ideation, whose total character is determined 
by the reciprocal influence of these same partial processes. 

We much prefer this way of regarding ideation as a conscious 
process resulting, under the laws of mental life, from the reaction 
upon each other of a variety of simpler and more primary processes, 
to any theories like those of Herbart or of the English Associational 
School. The followers of the former are much too apt to speak of 
ideas as though they were entities which admit of being treated 
as "examples" in addition, subtraction, and even in terms of the 
higher mathematics. The latter too often appear to regard the 
explanation of the entire mental life, and of its development, as 
capable of being brought under the so-called " laws of the association 
of ideas." Mr. Spencer's views on the "chemistry of ideas" quite 
regularly seem to include both these fallacies. The truth of Herbart's 
view, and of the view of the English Associational School, is preserved 
if we regard the conditions under which, and the manner in which, 
the simpler and partial processes of ideation combine and succeed 



THE PROCESS OF IDEATION 137 

each other, to facilitate the development of mental life. But the 
development of that life includes activities far other and higher than 
those provided for in terms of association. Nor is association itself 
ever merely passive. For in representation, the total character of every 
psychosis is the result of a spontaneous selective process, under the laws 
of that unity of consciousness which the very terms " state" or "field" of 
conscioustiess signify. 

Spontaneity of Ideas. — By the phrase "spontaneity of 
ideas," we mean to teach, in a figurative way, this impor- 
tant truth: Every ideation-process tends to recur in con- 
sciousness, if no other interests prevent ; and the strength of 
this tendency depends upon a variety of considerations which 
may be investigated. " Suggestion " of one idea by another 
is scarcely, then, to be spoken of as the primary thing. 
Intense, lifelike ideas, that stand for realities in which 
we have an absorbing interest, especially when they have 
been frequently and recently repeated, tend strongly to 
recur in the stream of consciousness. They do not need 
to be suggested. They arise, delightfully or frightfully 
fresh and strong, and dominating attention in a way to 
emphasize their own vitality. They keep recurring, "of 
themselves." Such experiences seem better accounted for 
by a theory of the spontaneity of ideation processes, under 
the two general laws of mental life given above (p. 136), 
than by any theories of "suggestion" or "association," 
properly so-called. 

Thus the idea of his mistress perpetually recurs in the lover's 
mind; the idea of the sick child in the mind of the mother ; the idea 
of the departed friend in the mind of the survivor. Thus, in times 
of commercial panic, bankers and merchants cannot keep out of their 
minds the idea of business ; in times of political or religious excite- 
ment it seems as though ideas of the appropriate kind were impreg- 
nating the very air. At other times mere random excitement of 
brain and mind seems to render all manner of rubbishing ideas en- 
dowed with a supernatural spontaneity. The ideation-processes " go 
wild." The successive fields of consciousness seem to be filled full 
of a hurly-burly of conflicting ideas that, without suggestion or 



138 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

reason, have " of themselves " broken forth to struggle or to sport 
together in the stream of consciousness. 

Fusion of Ideas. — The claim has already been established 
that the more complex and continuous processes of idea- 
tion must be explained by the relative interaction of 
numerous simpler, partial processes. This result may be 
considered under the term, the "fusion of ideas." Fusion 
takes place whenever a number of mental images — either 
(1) homogeneous (like) or (2) heterogeneous (unlike) — 
have become so connected together as to be simultaneously 
reproduced in the unity of one field of consciousness. 
Examples of homogeneous fusion occur in the case of all 
complex perceptions by any one of our senses. Thus the 
idea of an extended visual body implies a "solidification " 
into a mental unity of several representative processes 
that have their origin in sensations of color and light, 
and in muscular and tactual sensations. The idea of an 
extended tangible body is a fusion of ideas of temperature 
and pressure sensations. 

Heterogeneous mental images become fused so as to 
recur in the most whimsical and unnatural combinations 
in the unity of a single reproductive process. Thus one 
learned man, who had committed to memory certain pas- 
sages from books which he read while running errands, 
could never afterward recall the contents of these books 
without their being accompanied by the flitting images of 
the palisades and hedges by which he had run while 
reading. Another, who had worked as apprentice for a 
hatter, could never see black wainscoting (like that of his 
workshop) without at the same time smelling the varnish 
used in his former trade. The learned Maimon always 
accompanied strenuous mental effort with the same " Tal- 
mudic intoning and movement of the body " with which 
he had mastered the writings of the synagogue. All 
mental life thus has its nonsensical side. 



THE PROCESS OF IDEATION 139 

To speak of such close and inseparable connection of partial pro- 
cesses of ideation as a " suggestion of ideas," seems to us no more 
appropriate than it would be to say that sensations of temperature 
" suggest " those of pressure, or the reverse, when I perceive with my 
hand the coolness and smoothness of a marble slab. In this case, 
sensations of temperature and of pressure fuse in that complex con- 
scious state which, as involving other mental operations to be dealt 
with subsequently, we call the perception of something "cool-and- 
smooth." When, then, the complex idea of such an object recurs in 
consciousness, the word " fusion " seems still the most appropriate 
term to express the resultant of the several partial ideation-processes. 
Iu neither case, however, is this word to be understood in such man- 
ner as to impair the unity of the conscious state. Undoubtedly a 
similar principle extends far on into the higher developments of 
mental life. When, for example, the child cries because his mother 
suggests sending for the doctor, the term "suggests " serves well enough 
to point out the relation which exists between hearing the word and 
the complex memory-image that arises in the child's mind. But why 
should we adopt the clumsy expedient of saying that the word doc- 
tor suggests saddlebag's, and saddlebags suggests medicine, and medi- 
cine suggests nasty tastes ; and so on ? The child's very idea of the 
doctor is just this fused complex reproductive process, answering to 
the terms — a nasty-tasting — medicine-man — with — saddlebags. 

Conflict of Ideas. — The process of ideation does not 
always, by any means, run smoothly forward. We are 
sometimes made painfully aware of this fact. It seems 
as though we could not realize the right and satisfactory 
process, because the tendencies to form partial processes 
which will not come together in the unity of a conscious 
state are so strongly felt. This experience of our ideating 
activity, with its characteristic tone of feeling, may be 
spoken of as a "struggle" or "conflict" of ideas. It is 
scarcely necessary in this connection to utter again the 
warning against regarding the ideas as entities that can 
"inhibit," "conflict with," and "overcome" or "destroy" 
each other. But we have here a frequent experience, which 
needs to be recognized and, if possible, accounted for. Nor 
is the account difficult to give. As experience becomes 



140 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

more complex, there is no single process of ideation which 
has not occurred, in slightly modified form, in connection 
with a considerable variety of particular experiences. 
Thus the particular tendencies to fusion, and the corre- 
sponding suggestions of every process of ideation, are 
numerous, not to say innumerable. But the principles 
which limit the total stream of consciousness, as well 
as each particular portion of that stream, do not permit 
all these tendencies to prevail. Moreover, if the complex 
idea which is to occupy the central part of any field of 
consciousness is a memory picture, it must resemble its 
original. Even in the indulgence of the wildest fancy, 
the result of the ideation process must be somewhat like 
what is real in fact. Definite forms of fusion, to the 
exclusion of others, must then prevail; particular ideas 
must be suggested, to the partial or total suppression of 
all others. 

We may get a lively experience in the "reciprocal limi- 
tation of ideas " by trying to visualize red while repeating 
the word blue ; or to sing c% while intently looking at 
the note Vv\ or to picture the memory of Mrs.X. 's face with 
some one feature modified to the recollection of the equally 
familiar face of Mrs. Y. Both the principles of the 
"fusion" and of the "inhibition," or "conflict," of ideas 
are provided for in the following statement : Every ideating 
process (or idea) expresses a number of tendencies to repro- 
ductive energy that are " solidified" for the time- being under 
the limiting and yet unifying conditions of that particular 
field of consciousness. 

Dependent Connection of Separate Ideas. — It is, in fact, 
our conscious states, and not our simple or complex ideas 
alone, which follow each other in the stream of conscious- 
ness. But conscious states are always something more 
than mere processes of ideation ; they are states of know- 
ledge, feeling, will, — all three in each conscious state. 



THE PROCESS OF IDEATION 141 

The succession of these states in time involves — or rather, 
it is — the entire knowable being and history of our mental 
life. 

Ideating processes are, however, a most important part 
of the life of the mind; and the laws of their connection 
and sequence (the laws of "suggestion " or "association" 
of ideas) are of the greatest interest to the psychologist. 
In studying these laws two truths are of value in a pre- 
liminary way: (1) The succession of ideas is relatively 
"free." We cannot directly determine by mental habit, 
or temporary mood, or sudden feeling, or choice, what the 
succession of perceptions shall be. But the succession of 
our own ideas is obviously, to a much larger extent, a 
matter of our own choice or state of mind. This is true, 
in a limited way, of memory; but it is, above all, in fancy, 
that we are free. (2) Observation and experiment show 
that the succession of ideas is not free in the sense that 
sequent ideas are not dependent, both for their occurring 
and for their character, upon preceding ideas. The suc- 
cession of ideas is limited and determined by something 
other than merely our feeling or our choice. If the idea 
A occurs in consciousness, it is not an even thing whether 
B or N will follow; neither is the appearance of M with- 
out the expectation, not to say certainty, that N will appear 
next rather than B. 

One fact of experience which expresses the truth of the 
second statement just made, while leaving room for the 
undoubted truth of the first statement, is the following: 
Not only single impressions, but successions of impressions, 
tend to be reproduced in a manner similar to the original 
impressions ; and the reproduction of the time-order is a 
residt of the general disposition to reproduce. 

Association of Ideas in Series. — The simplest cases of 
association best illustrate the foregoing principle of all 
association of ideas. Such cases are frequent enough, 



142 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY * 

and they lie at the very base of early education, since all 
primary training and development of mental faculty „ 
requires the repeated production of similar psychical pro- 4 
cesses in similar sequence of time. It is thus that children • 
learn to walk, to talk, to sing, and to use their senses.' 
in the perception L of things, and their powers of mei%f 
ory, imagination, and thought. In the same way'eve'fy 
adult masters the mere routine of his past impressions, •' 
and stores them for future usefulness. Mention any par- 
ticular letter in the alphabet, and the succession of letters/ 
follows in idea, in the original order of learning the^ 
alphabet. A suggests B, C, D, and L suggests M, • jV, 
0, P. The first tones of "Old Hundred," or of any 
other familiar hymn, draw the succeeding tones almost 
irresistibly after them. ; To sing it backward is well-nigh 
impossible, although this particular tune is about as good 
music when sung in yreverse order as in the order which 
became fixed when i^c was learned. 

But the association between members of a series well 
learned in a certain order gives a preference, so to speak, 
to more or less distantly connected members of the same 
series. This preference is, of course, strongest in the 
original order ; but, within narrower limits, it may even 
acquire force in another than the original order. Ebbing- 
haus found that, in learning series of non-sense syllables, 
even the not immediately contiguous members of the series 
had become associated. A series once learned and then 
forgotten could be relearned with a saving of 33.3 per 
cent, of effort for the next contiguous members. But on 
skipping one syllable, the saving was still 10.8 per cent. ; 
and on skipping two, three, or even four syllables, the 
saving was still 7.0, 5.8, and 3.3 per cent., respectively. 

Condensation of Series of Ideas. — In its intense practical 
efforts to secure its ends, the mind is not content to abide 
by the slower process of reproducing series of ideas in 



THE PEOCESS OF IDEATION 143 

their original order. The grasp of consciousness is 
necessarily limited; hence the necessity of condensing 
the series of ideating processes by dropping out unimpor- 
tant members of it as originally required. This process 
of condensation is preparatory to the formation of concep- 
tions and to the use of words as the "bearers " or "vehi- 
cles " of the condensed series of ideas. Thus A, B, C, 
comes to stand for the entire alphabet. " From A to Q, " 
may do well enough for all that lies between, if only a 
vague feeling of some content intervenes. In this way 
we form the idea of a familiar stretch of scenery, of a 
journey we have taken, of a long passage from some 
favorite author, or of an entire musical aria. The scenery 
contained these three or four notable memory-pictures; 
the journey was that one from New York to London 
when the two days of rough weather occurred ; the passage 
is the one beginning thus and ending so; the aria has such 
snatches of melody, which we repeat in idea. Modern 
Japanese has one word compounded out of the first sylla- 
bles of the three principal cities (Kyoto, Osaka, and 
Tokyo) of Japan. 

Very important in this connection is it to emphasize 
again the nature of the grasp of consciousness. Thus 
Cattell found that three times as many letters, when con- 
nected into words as when disconnected, could be appre- 
hended in one field of consciousness. And Ebbinghaus 
found that one-tenth as much work would suffice to learn 
the same number of syllables when making sense (capable 
of being ideated in condensed form) as was needed for 
mere non-sense syllables. A close watch upon ourselves 
will disclose the truth that, even when we are listening 
most intently and, as we say, "taking in every word," we 
really form only a very limited number of ideas to stand 
for the entire series of experiences. We conclude then : 
Some of the members of any series come to stand as repre- 



144 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

sentative ideas, not only for their own originals, but also for 
several of the contiguous members of the original series ; and 
the subordinate members of the series take the part of faint 
(somewhat parasitical) "fringes " of ideation for the empha- 
sized ideas. 

Principle of Contiguity. — The one principle under which 
all cases of association of ideas fall may now be announced. 
It has been implied in all that has already been said about 
the process of ideation ; and, indeed, about the funda- 
mental nature of mental life. It may be called "the 
Principle of Contiguity," and may be stated in the follow- 
ing way: Associated ideas reappear as contiguous states of 
consciousness (are associated) because they represent pro- 
cesses that were, with varying degrees of intensity and in 
other forms of relationship, originally contiguous processes. 

The psychical character of this "contiguity" which fur- 
nishes the basis of association in idea cannot be over- 
emphasized. The time or space or other relations in 
which the original experiences were connected, are not to 
be conceived of as something apart from the activities of 
the mind itself. That events actually occur together in 
the external world affords no reason for their being associ- 
ated together in idea, unless they are perceived or thought 
as occurring together. That things and events are really 
similar or contrasted does not furnish an explanation of 
their association in idea, unless they are perceived or 
thought of as similar or contrasted. In brief, it is con- 
tiguity in consciousness, the actual being together in the 
unity of the mental life, which accounts for the ideas 
recurring together as associated ideas in that same mental 
life. 

Application of the Principle of Contiguity. — The validity 
of this principle as applicable to all cases of the associa- 
tion of ideas can be tested only by the continued study of 
the phenomena as bearing for or against the principle. 



PRINCIPLE OF ALL IDEATION 145 

Ordinary cases of association by (1) contiguity in space 
and time easily fall under this general law. As has 
already been said, things that are together in space, and 
events actually contiguous in time, never become associ- 
ated unless they have become mentally united — perceived 
or thought of as contiguous. But in every complex act 
of perception or analytic activity of thought, attention 
and discrimination are preparing the material for a variety 
of possible ideal associations. 

(2) Cases of means suggesting ends, of causes suggest- 
ing effects, of signs suggesting things signified, and the 
reverse, are also not difficult to account for under the 
same principle. The sight of the poker suggests the idea 
of poking the fire; or the sight of a poorly burning fire 
suggests the idea of the needed poker. Oiled rags, and 
unignited matches near by, suggest a train of ideas that 
move along the line of cause and effect. Both cases rest 
upon previous connections of conscious states of percep- 
tion or of thoughts about things that embody the results 
of the actual experience of other men. 

(3) So-called association by contrast illustrates the 
same principle. In acquiring our perceptions, and in 
thinking about objects, we must discriminate opposites 
— the contrasted qualities and actions of things. Thus 
the very process of acquiring brings the contrasted things 
and qualities into a unity within the life of the con- 
scious mind. The original contiguity in consciousness 
accounts for the contiguity or association which the con- 
trasted ideas of things and of their qualities have. The 
passage from light to darkness, from joy to sorrow, etc., 
is an impressive experience. The ideas of light and dark- 
ness, of joy and sorrow, thus acquire power to suggest 
each other. 

(4) What is called association by similarity is, in- 
deed, one of the most extended and fundamental of the 



146 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

laws of primary intellection and presentative experience 
generally. It is for this reason that our ideas of the 
similar become associated. All conscious processes — 
attentive discrimination, the formation of complex sen- 
sations, our experiences with compound forms of feel- 
ing, and the formation of complex ideas by the fusion 
of simpler ideas — involve the distinction of like from 
unlike, and the assimilation of the like. But this ex- 
perience, instead of being something different from the 
principle of contiguity in consciousness, is precisely this 
same principle in action, as it were. To maintain a theory 
of association of ideas by similarity as something different 
from the principle of contiguity, rests then upon a con- 
fusion : Those laws of mental life which regulate discrimi- 
nating consciousness in acquiring the original 'presentations 
must not be confounded with those other laws which regulate 
the mechanism of the reproduced and associated ideas. The 
former are primitive, the latter derived. 

As to both the similar and the contrasted, in idea, 
different persons differ almost beyond all assignable 
bounds. This is due to the fact that we do not generally 
notice likenesses and unlikenesses that have little or no 
significance for our daily lives. Thus what is very unlike, 
and so not at all apt to be associated in the ideation of the 
ordinary observer, is suggested as notably like in the mind 
of the scientific man. All this shows that the principle 
of association is to be found in the uniting or separating 
character of the original activities of perception and of 
thought. 

The discovery and discussion of the laws of association has re- 
ceived much attention from psychologists from Aristotle downwards. 
This great thinker enumerated three primary laws, — -contiguity in 
time and space, resemblance, and contrariety. Coming down to 
Hume we find him omitting contrariety and adding cause and effect. 
The principle of similarity — ideas suggest like ideas — is the one 



PRINCIPLE OF ALL IDEATION 147 

generalization that has maintained itself as the strongest rival of the 
principle which we adopt. The acute psychologist Hoffding has even 
taken the position that so far from association by similarity being- 
resolvable into association by contiguity, every association by con- 
tiguity, on the contrary, presupposes an association by similarity, 
or at least an immediate recognition of similarity. Now the latter 
part of this statement of Hoffding is true if only we strike out certain 
words, change others, and make it read as follows : " Some " (not 
" every ") " association by contiguity presupposes ... an immediate 
recognition" of similarity. This virtually admits the principle for 
which we are contending ; namely, that the laws which regulate the 
succession of associated ideas are a derivative of the laws which 
regulate the binding together of elements and objects into the unity 
of one field of consciousness. 

We may understand the truth of experience better by analyzing 
briefly an example. Let us take the one selected by Hoffding himself 
as illustrating " the innermost germ of the association of all ideas." I 
see an apple on the table before me and quickly find myself thinking 
of Adam and Eve. Undoubtedly this is because, as Hoffding says, 
I have — though so quickly as to be hardly " conscious of it "■ — had the 
idea of the apple on the tree of knowledge. But the explanation does 
not consist in the bare similarity of the two ideas as such. The train 
of ideas does not run thus because the apple on the table, being in idea 
similar to the apple in the Garden of Eden, has suggested the latter, 
and this latter has then suggested Adam and Eve. [Surely the latter 
case of suggestion is not easily explained by similarity of ideas.] 
On the contrary, the sight of an apple and its name have long ago so 
been bound together, by being repeatedly grasped together in con- 
sciousness, as to constitute a process of immediate recognition. The 
idea of an apple has also, by reading or hearing the Biblical story, 
been often brought into close mental contiguity with the ideas of the 
tree in the Garden of Eden, and so of Adam and Eve. It is because 
of these processes of previous recognition, due to a variety of causes, 
and not because of any special power of like ideas to suggest like, 
that the idea of Adam and Eve follows the idea of the Garden of 
Eden, which idea was itself suggested by sight of the apple. 

Indeed, Hoffding virtually admits the insufficiency of his analysis 
when he proceeds to maintain that the "two laws may be brought 
under one and the same fundamental law." This law he awkwardly 
calls " the law of totality," and ascribes it to " the synthetic activity of 
consciousness." But this is to adopt our principle. 



148 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Secondary Laws of Association. — Particular cases of the 
association of ideas are found to require a variety of con- 
siderations for their satisfactory solution. Indeed, one's 
associations of ideas embody pretty much all of one's past 
experience. So that the answer to the question, Why 
have I just now this particular idea rather than some 
other? may have to be sought at the roots and all along 
the obscurer growths of my entire mental life. 

Among the more prominent reasons for particular asso- 
ciations of ideas the following may be noted: (A) The 
assumed nature or constitution of the mind. Certain 
"natural" tendencies, which powerfully influence the 
original acquisitions of the mind, extend themselves to 
the processes representative of these originals. Hence 
different persons differ in respect of the association of 
ideas, because of (B) temperament, sex, race, age, etc. 
Sanguine, sentimental, and phlegmatic men differ in the 
speed and character of their mental train. Vague long- 
ings and sentiments which spring up at puberty, and the 
tendency to reminiscence in old age, are influential fac- 
tors. But (C) the transient or more permanent mood 
determines the association of ideas. We think of things 
gay, when we are gay; and of sombre things when our 
mood is sober. The ideas of Milton's " L' Allegro " are 
suggested at one time by the same experiences which 
make us recall the ideas of " II Penseroso " at another 
time. (D) The intensity, fulness of content, and con- 
nection with vital interests — the total strength of impres- 
sion — belonging to the original states determine the 
actual association of ideas among the possible connec- 
tions of those states. (E) It is the more recent ideas 
which, other things being equal, determine the direction 
of the immediately following train of associated ideas. 
Freshness of the original experience contributes strength 
to the associating tendency of the representative idea. 



PRINCIPLE OF ALL IDEATION 149 

But, finally, (F) repetition and habit are of the very 
highest importance in the mechanism of ideas, as they are 
in the explanation of all our mental life. 

Interesting illustrations of most of these secondary laws of asso- 
ciation are furnished by the results of Dr. Scripture in his experi- 
mental investigation of the "Associative Course of the Ideas." Thus 
a Japanese, on being shown a red light, after experiencing an agree- 
able feeling and uttering an exclamation of pleasure, had the mental 
picture of the sun and then of the Japanese flag (which has a sun 
on it). Another observer, on touching leather, had at once the 
visual image of yellow chamois skin and of men whom he had seen 
selling it but two weeks previously. Still another, on hearing the 
sound of a rolling ball, had the experience of an unstable mental 
image which defined itself as that of a marble rolling over a board 
(an African sport). A fourth observer, on being shown the picture 
of a brown bear, imagined a scene in which men were being dragged 
off by Polar bears, as in a narrative which he had read four years ago. 

" Freeing " of the Ideas. — For purposes of recognition, 
and as motives to immediate action, there is a certain 
great advantage belonging to the most intense, life-like, 
and objective of our representative states. But for pur- 
poses of what is called " abstract " thought and of lan- 
guage, another sort of advantage must be acquired by 
these states. When vivid, life-like, and capable of easy 
objective reference, our ideas are most like our concrete 
states of sensation and perception. But they are then 
capable only of representing a very limited number of the 
objects of our sense-perception. If, for example, I exam- 
ine most minutely a single flower, and thus carry away a 
detailed and accurate picture of that particular flower, this 
picture will not do to represent some other flower, even 
of the same species. 

A process sometimes called that of "freeing the ideas " 
must then take place, if we are to be able to picture 
classes of objects. Such a process will involve these two 
connected phases : (1) The individual complex ideas (or 



150 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

ideating processes), by losing more and more of those 
factors which were given to them by previous experiences, 
become capable of representing a larger number of experi- 
ences that are similar only in respect of a smaller number 
of characteristics. The ideas are thus "set free" to 
represent a larger number of somewhat less similar indi- 
viduals. (2) These same ideas, by losing the fixity of 
position which they had in a small number of series, 
become capable of association with a larger number of 
ideas to form new combinations and new series. They 
are thus "set free" to enter into a larger number of 
combinations. 

It seems, then, that the less vivid and lifelike any idea 
is, as compared with any single presentative object, the more 
service it can do in representing an entire class of objects. 

Schematizing of Ideas. — Substantially the same changes 
in the processes of ideation may be described as the pro- 
gressive "schematizing" of our representative images. 
As the application of ideas to the development of know- 
ledge widens, the factors which can become fused in any 
complex idea, and so made to stand for an entire class of 
objects are reduced in number. The unessential or rela- 
tively useless factors are dropped out ; the few essential 
or relatively most useful factors are retained. The rude 
drawings of primitive peoples, the origins of the different 
alphabets, the gruntings and gesturings with which savages 
help out their meagre language, the use of signs in mathe- 
matics, illustrate the same psychological truth. The 
schema, or "sketching" idea, does the work of a long 
series of more lifelike ideas. 

In this same development the superior objective quali- 
ties of the ideas of sight and touch become apparent. 
One can picture schematically to one's self a heliotrope 
or a Japanese lily in terms of sight; but the schema of the 
smell of either of these classes of flowers is much more 



PRINCIPLE OF ALL IDEATION 151 

evanescent. Solid and real things require schematic 
reproduction in terms of the tactual and muscular experi- 
ence. In general, the more " abstract " the ideas derived 
from our presentations of sense become, the more do they 
consist of highly schematized images in terms of sight and 
touch. But these classes of ideas belong to the more intel- 
lectual and objective of the senses. 

A correspondent of Galton, on closing his eyes, habitu- 
ally saw arise before him a series of concrete visual images, 
of which he seemed to be only the passive spectator; for 
example, a bow — -an arrow — hands drawing the bow — 
a cloud of arrows — falling stars — flakes of snow — ground 
covered with snow, etc. Compare this experience with what 
goes on in the consciousness of the average reader of 
the words describing the experience. How lifelike but 
limited the one associated series! how abstract but free 
in association, the other ! 

Plan in All Ideation. — The earlier processes of ideation 
seem peculiarly mechanical in character. They therefore 
lend themselves easily to experiment and to the more 
mechanical theories of the mental life and mental develop- 
ment. But clear traces early appear of something, even 
in the process of ideation itself, which oversteps the 
bounds of mere mechanism. The beginnings of an organi- 
zation of experience are, indeed, largely passive. But we 
have already seen that attentive and discriminating con- 
sciousness, as announcing the presence of activities which 
will develop into faculties of judgment and will, are 
everywhere- present. So in the formation and control of 
associations among the ideas, the conscious desires, 
choices, and rational judgments of the mind, will come 
more and more into evidence. The systematic and pur- 
poseful character of the dominant associations, and not 
merely the dominance of the systems of associated ideas, 
will be established. The mind will appear less as the 



152 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

subject and victim, and more as the creator and master of 
its own ideas. 

[In modern psychology, the Herbartians in Germany and the writ- 
ers of the Associational School in Great Britain have been prolific of 
treatises on this subject. To these treatises general reference may be 
made. The experimental treatment of the fundamental phenomena 
is given by Scripture : The New Psychology, Part II, " Time," espe- 
cially Chap. xiii. Monographs may be consulted, by Hering : Ueber 
das Gedachtniss, etc. ; Uphues: Ueber die Erinnerung ; Ebbinghaus : 
Ueber das Gedachtniss ; Strieker : Studien iiber d. Association d. Vor- 
stellungen ; Binet : La Psychologie du Kaisonnement ; Ferri : La Psy- 
chologie de l'Association ; and Nichols : Memory.] 



PART SECOND 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL LIFE 

CHAPTER VIII 

IMPULSE, INSTINCT, AND DESIRE 

We have now completed the preliminary survey of 
those elementary mental processes which enter, as factors 
or constituents, into every conscious state of the adult 
mind. These processes are what we discover when we 
direct our attention, in the way of searching analysis, upon 
the varying aspects of the stream of consciousness. It 
is by their growth, in varying degrees and modes of syn- 
thesis, that the formation of "faculties" and the develop- 
ment of the entire mental life is explained. Sensation, 
feeling, conation with its accompanying movements, and 
the processes of representative - image-making ; and over 
all, aud in all, attentive and discriminating recognition 
of the like and the unlike; — these are the transactions 
which are ceaselessly going on in the conscious Mind. 

It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that mental 
growth can be explained, or even described, as mere com- 
bination of these elementary mental processes. It will 
soon appear, that certain principles must be recognized 
which, as it were, lie deeper down in the constitution of 
the one subject of all conscious states. But it is substan- 
tially true of all developments, that the factors which 
enter into them do not account for their own existence or 
for their modes of combination. Preeminently is it true 
of the mind that It grows according to ideas (a "plan "), 
153 



154 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

which are not by any means consciously recognized as the 
objects of its own pursuit and choice. Mental life runs 
a career which is sui generis, and which is regulated by 
laws of its own, in the following of a purposeful order, — 
the so-called "nature" or "constitution" of a human 
mind. 

In all the more epoch-making stages of mental develop- 
ment, what appear as wonderful new faculties manifest 
themselves. We shall see this to be true of perception 
as objective cognition, of ideation as recognitive memory, 
of scientific acquisition, and of freedom in self-control. 
At the same time, it remains true that it is by the com- 
bination of the elementary processes, in ever-increasing 
complexity, up to the limit of complete development, that 
the formation of faculty and the attainment of "Mind," in 
the full meaning of the word, are to be explained. 

We now turn to the work of tracing the development 
of mental life along its different main lines of growth and 
maturing. But, first of all, there are certain obscure and 
complex processes that arise chiefly in the fusion of affec- 
tive and conative elements, with a minimum amount of 
intellection. These processes emphasize the appetitive 
nature of mind. They furnish "push" and "impetus " to 
its earliest and least intellectual forthputtings. In the 
case of minds which attain to a higher and more distinctly 
rational self-control, these processes are either refined and 
directed toward more clearly recognized ends, or they are 
subordinated. They may be somewhat roughly classified 
as Impulse, Instinct, and Desire. 

Appetitive Consciousness, in General. — It follows from the 
very nature of those conscious states which are properly 
called "appetitive " that they are as numerous in kind as 
are the forms of feeling in which they take their rise. 
They all have this in common, however, that they belong 



IMPULSE, INSTINCT, AND DESIRE 155 

to man as made for action. They equip him for, and propel 
him toward, the doing of something in the attainment of 
ends. But the growth of experience consists partly in 
learning the proper inhibitions to impulsive movements, 
as well as in learning the proper movements to satisfy the 
impulses. Moreover, those forms of feeling in which the 
movements take their rise, and the resulting movements or 
inhibitions of movements, are all too customarily tinged 
with a decided coloring of pleasure-pain. This may be 
illustrated by a simple reference to the stock example of 
the child that impulsively reaches for the candle, gratifies 
its impulse to touch the flame, and receives for the future 
an inhibitory memory-image stamped into the very organ- 
ism with the sharpness of its pains. 

Various classes of appetitive states of consciousness 
have been recognized by psychologists, and a variety of 
terms employed for them. But it is not necessary to enter 
into details in order to understand this side of mental 
development. In describing briefly the three prominent, 
yet related, forms of " appetition, " the following remarks 
are pertinent: (1) In no case does psychology intend to 
treat of the unconscious or merely reflex and automatic 
combinations of the motor organism. The words " impul- 
sive " and "instinctive," when used to designate such 
combinations, are of physiological and not psychological 
significance. The psychologist deals with impulse and 
instinct, as well as desire, only when they become con- 
scious states. (2) Impulse, instinct, and desire, considered 
as psychoses^ are terms which may be applied to explain 
a great variety of bodily movements. There is often much 
doubt which of these three words best describes the kind 
of consciousness that goes with a particular variety of 
movements. Yet when more carefully considered, each 
of the three seems to emphasize a somewhat different 
aspect of similar complex conscious states. 



156 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Nature of Impulse. — The psychological conception of 
impulse may be defined as follows : a conation, initiated 
and fused with a feeling of craving, in view of some object 
of sense-perception or imagination, with a tendency to dis- 
charge in a complicated form of purposeful movements. The 
definition lays emphasis upon the impelling power of such 
feeling-full volitions as have reference to the attainment 
of some end. This end- itself, however, may be only very 
obscurely perceived, and not at all reflectively and deliber- 
ately chosen. The infant kicks, strikes, bites, clutches 
with its hands, makes its first efforts at creeping and 
walking, — so far as all this is not a matter of pure physical 
mechanism, — " impulsively." In much the same way (in 
impulsive fashion) the trained athlete performs his feats, 
the fencer thrusts and parries, the thinker seizes and fol- 
lows some mental clue. In similar fashion do men and 
women fall in love and pursue the object of their passion ; 
heroes, aglow with excitement, hew their way or lead 
their troops in battle; business men buy and sell stocks, 
or gamblers bet at cards. 

Inhibition of Impulse. — Nothing is more important than 
to secure the right checks to the primary forms of appe- 
titive conscious states. The human being with unin- 
hibited impulses would be left in sorry condition indeed; 
strictly speaking, such a being could not continue in 
existence at all, but would speedily destroy itself. One 
notable difference between the trained adult and the lower 
animal, the child, the insane and diseased will, or the 
subject of hypnotic suggestion, is that the former has a 
reserve of inhibitory influences, in which the latter are 
lacking. It is, first of all, the growth of experience with 
the painful or pleasurable consequences of our impulsive 
efforts to gratify our cravings that furnishes a system of 
inhibitions upon the natural impulses. It is, afterward, 
the development of the reasoning powers, and the pur- 



IMPULSE, INSTINCT, AND DESIRE 157 

suit of ethical and eesthetical ideals, which strengthens, 
refines, and elevates this system of inhibitions. 

Physiologically expressed, it may be said that the power of inhibit- 
ing impulses implies a reserve of nerve-energy in the higher psychic 
centres of the brain. When this reserve is wanting, the control of 
these centres over the lower parts of the nervous mechanism is weak 
and insufficient; the discharges from the lower centres are too prompt 
and explosive, as it were. Psychologically considered, we notice in 
persons of over-impulsive characteristics that they lack reserve in ex- 
pressive action and in movements designed for the immediate satis- 
faction of excited sense or feeling. Various forms of mania are 
characterized in this way. The dipsomaniac drinks impulsively; the 
kleptomaniac steals impulsively; the planomaniac wanders off impul- 
sively; the erotomaniac gratifies sexual passion impulsively. 

Development of Impulse. — There are two sets of con- 
siderations which, by their mutual action, determine the 
development of the mind in its impulsive states of con- 
sciousness. First, the impulses themselves tend to become 
more numerous and complicated as intellectual develop- 
ment proceeds. We are accustomed to think of the child 
as preeminently the creature of impulse. It is true that 
the power of impulse is relatively large in its case; and 
that the area in its consciousness given to movements 
prompted by craving and going out toward ill-defined 
ends, is the more extensive. But the result of experience 
itself is to uncover and multiply other and more compli- 
cated forms of impulse. 

But, second, the very conditions of mental development 
are such as to reduce the various impulses to some sort of 
unity. What is called "conflict of impulses " very early 
develops. The fierceness and the complications of such 
a conflict increase, within certain limits, as experience 
expands and hardens; that is, with the development of 
mental life. Two modifying results must, therefore, be 
secured: (1) Certain impulses become dominant; they 
attain the position of habitual exciters and controllers of 



158 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

the spheres of action belonging to them. This secures a 
certain "consolidation" of impulsive movements. The 
movements lose their earlier more random and purely 
automatic character; they become habitually adapted to 
the realization of the dominant impulses. (2) At the 
same time, deliberation and rational regard for conse- 
quences conduce to the control, in the interests of more 
remote ends, of the mental appetencies. For example, 
the confirmed dipsomaniac is under the dominant impulse 
to gratify the craving for drink, while the child is swayed 
by a constant change of appetencies. But the adult 
drunkard will delay the gratification of the one impulse 
and will plan ways to escape its more disagreeable conse- 
quences, as the child will not in the case of any one of its 
numerous impulses. 

The Appetites. — The three forms of appetite popularly 
recognized may be considered as impulses which develop 
early and in all human beings, on a basis of special physio- 
logical conditions. These three forms are, of course, the 
appetite for food, the appetite for drink, and the appetite 
of sex. The sucking of the new-born child is probably a 
purely physiological reflex; but through experience in 
being fed, a truly psychical appetency arises. This 
acquired infantile appetite consists of uneasy, ill-localized 
bodily sensations, a more or less vague psychical desire 
for an object already experienced as pleasure-giving, and 
the revived mental images of satisfactions already received 
in the experience of this object (the nursing-bottle or the 
mother's breast). "The appetite for food," as it exists 
in adult life, is a much more complex affair. 

What is called the "appetite of sex " cannot be spoken 
of as a single or a simple impulse. It is an exceedingly 
variable and complex mixture of sensation, imagination, 
feeling, and will. It emerges in consciousness as a 
recognizable impulse comparatively late in the devel- 



IMPULSE, INSTINCT, AND DESIRE 159 

opment of mental life, and under the influence of a great 
variety of domestic, social, and more distinctly legal 
influences. Its beginnings manifest themselves some- 
times as a matter of feeling gentle repulsions, or "shy- 
ness," sometimes in the form of vaguer or more definite 
attractions mingled with curiosity, desire of approbation, 
and undefined cravings. While it is probably never 
wholly free from admixture of elements due to the differ- 
ence in the bodily organism of the two sexes, it is also 
seldom sunk so low as to be a mere physical impulse 
dissociated from ethical or sesthetical significance in the 
estimate of the mind which feels it. 

Impulses from the Emotions. — Each of those forms of 
intense feeling which we call "emotions " has its charac- 
teristic, correlated impulse. The impulse of anger is to 
strike, or kick, or resist in some way. "Love," says 
Bain, "is completed and satisfied with an embrace." The 
impulse of fear is to run away, or to assume an attitude 
of defence rather than of attack, as in the case of anger. 
When the feelings of curiosity, doubt, or belief, reach an 
emotional stage, they manifest appropriate impulsive and 
purposeful movements. Curiosity impels us to look atten- 
tively, doubt to look suspiciously, and belief to look con- 
fidingly, at its object. These " innate " impulses, as they 
.are sometimes called, are restrained in the interests of 
habitually or deliberately chosen ends. But the restraint 
itself is inevitably connected with a feeling of tension 
which is highly significant of the explosive condition of 
the motor organism. 

Nature of Instinct. — Few words have been employed 
with more pardonable indefiniteness, and even ignorance 
as to what really corresponds to them, than the word 
"instinct." By common agreement, however, the in- 
stincts are thought to have their origin for the individual 
in certain impulsive forms of feeling, which set a mechan- 



160 DESCEIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

ism already prepared for them, as it were, into movement 
in a purposeful way. Thus far instincts and impulses 
are alike in their psychological origin and psychical char- 
acter. The proper, restriction of the word "instinct" 
should be made, it seems to us, in connection with the 
interests of the species. By instincts, then, we under- 
stand such impulsive activities as belong to all the members 
of a class, and thus exhibit themselves, either at particular 
periods or uniformly, in the development of the individual 
as a member of the species, or in the propagation and preser- 
vation of the species. 

In the case of man it appears that no perfectly clear 
distinction can be made between his impulses and his 
instincts. The relation of the individual to the species 
is such, however, that human instincts are relatively few, 
and human impulses relatively maity, when man is com- 
pared with the lower animals. Yet the meaning of the 
word instinct can be enlarged so as to include those more 
social forms of the functioning of' the mind on which the 
welfare of each individual as a member of the race, and 
of the race as an aggregate of individuals, is dependent. 
There seems to be a show of psychological science in 
speaking of the more social emotions and sentiments, as 
they operate to produce common movements in large mul- 
titudes, as "specific instincts." But this stretches too far 
the figure of speech by which we compare men building 
the " organism " of society to birds building nests, or to 
bees and ants constructing their community arrangements. 

Impulses and instincts have most psychical characteristics in com- 
mon ; they are largely similar appetencies of mind resulting in similar 
forms of purposeful movement. We may often be in doubt which 
word most properly to employ. For example, the bird may be said to 
mate, and to build its nest, either as the result of impulse, or instinc- 
tively. We might explain the child's beginning to walk, and the 
bird's beginning to fly, in the same double way. In case the word 
"impulse" is used, the emphasis is laid upon the forceful influence of 



IMPULSE, INSTINCT, AND DESIRE 161 

that craving in which the ensuing series of complicated movements 
takes its rise. If the word " instinct " is used, attention is directed to 
the ideal end of the movements ; and more emphasis is laid on the at 
least obscure mental representation of this end. But this end has no 
meaning for us, however the case may be in the consciousness of bird 
or of child, without taking the welfare of the species into the account. 

Significance of the Instincts. — However the instincts of 
man are explained and interpreted, there can be no doubt 
that their most obvious meaning is, as has been said, 
connected with the propagation and preservation of the 
species. Further than this we find a considerable varia- 
tion of opinion not only possible, but even encouraged by 
different aspects of such complex phenomena. Some 
writers over-emphasize their physiological explanation 
and their merely biological significance. This emphasis 
may even go so far as to reduce the young human animal 
to a complex sensory-motor mechanism. But from this 
point of view we must remind ourselves that the proper 
sensory-motor and ideo-motor mental activities seem in- 
separably linked in with the possession and use of an 
appropriate mechanism. A writer on instinct has put 
the case in this way : " Has the bird a gland for the secre- 
tion of oil? She knows instinctively how to press the oil 
from the gland and apply it to the feather, etc." To speak 
of "instinctive knowledge" is, indeed, a misuse of terms. 
But that psychical function and organic development are 
correlated, there is little or no doubt. 

The metaphysical explanation of instinct is suggested to psychology 
by such observations as those made by Goethe. " There is in the 
curious and kindly operation of instincts something which, who- 
ever studies and does not believe in God, will not be aided by Moses 
and the Prophets. In these instincts I perceive what I call the 
omnipresence of the Deity, who has everywhere spread and implanted 
a portion of his endless love, and has intimated, even in the brute, 
as a germ, those qualities which blossom to perfection in the noblest 
forms of men." 



162 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

The psychological explanation of human instincts is the only one 
to which it becomes us to refer in the present connection. This ex- 
planation (?) barely describes the probable complexion of a particular 
class of intricate but confused psychoses, and points out the relations 
sustained to the existence and well-being of the species by the move- 
ments to which the psychoses give rise. It involves the physiological 
view; it suggests for further reflection the metaphysical. 

Kinds of Impulses and Instincts. — The exact classification 
of the elementary forms of appetitive consciousness is not 
a matter of great importance to the more general science 
of psychology. Minute study of specific impulses and 
instincts is, on the contrary, of great importance to the 
student of comparative psychology. It accords with our 
views of the nature of the latter, that, in all the higher 
mammals, impulsive and instinctive performances are not 
absolutely uniform and infallible, but are modifiable by 
experience. Recent investigations in biology seem to 
have shown that even the most primary of them generally, 
if not uniformly, require at least some individual example 
for imitation, or some specific form of stimulation, to render 
them operative. The duckling that sees the mother duck 
swimming, and the infant that feels the pressure of the 
floor underneath its body and, simultaneously, the impulse 
of some distant object which it desires to reach, begin to 
swim and to creep — "instinctively.'''' But the one is 
" originally endowed " with a complex swimming, and the 
other with a complex creeping, mechanism. 

It follows that the gap between blindly reflex or auto- 
matic mechanism and the most intelligent acquired apti- 
tudes may be filled up with an indefinite number of kinds 
of impulses and instincts. Thus we hear of such instincts 
in infants as the instinct to suck, to bite, to clasp, to 
put into its mouth, to cry, smile, creep, walk, imitate, 
emulate, fight, etc. We hear also of instincts of play, of 
shyness, sociability, secretiveness, modesty, etc. Why 



IMPULSE, INSTINCT, AND DESIRE 163 

not say, in a word, that the human animal "has an in- 
stinct " to do everything that it can do ; and that it does 
instinctively everything it actually does in the manifold 
use of its various powers? 

In studying the development of mental life, it is, there- 
fore, important to bear in mind how these impulsive and 
instinctive conscious states are the starters of the whole 
process of development. All growth of faculty, all begin- 
ning of psychical organization, comes in this way. Just 
as there are as many kinds of instincts and impulses for 
squirrels as there are things which young squirrels can 
do, — and among them collecting and storing nuts is, 
perhaps, most specific and noteworthy, — so the human 
being has all the increased number and superior kinds of 
impulses and instincts which belong to him as human. 

Nature of Desire. — By desire ive understand that blended 
feeling and conation which is directed toivard some object 
mentally presented or represented, and of whose pleasure- 
pain characteristics toe have had previous experience. Thus 
although all desires are forms of craving and of initial 
conation, they involve a more intelligent and contempla- 
tive attitude toward some particular object than do the 
impulses or instincts. Desires may, indeed, follow their 
objects as blindly as impulses or instincts do; but desires 
are less blind toward their objects. One knows what one 
desires; but the outreaching of impulsive or instinctive 
feeling is often enough toward — one knows not what. 

The psychology of the desires requires that they should 
be considered in relation to each of the three forms of the 
functioning of mind which they involve : (1) Intellect 
and imagination take a relatively large part in those 
appetitive conscious states to which the name " desire " 
is properly given. Such states cannot arise until some 
presentative and representative knowledge of objects has 
become possible. Definite, strong, and persistent desires 



164 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

require that their object should be held before the mind 
as a possible object of attainment. Infants may desire the 
moon ; but the further work of intellect in constructing 
the moon as such an unattainable and undesirable object 
as it actually is, destroys it as an object of desire for the 
adult mind. (2) Without excitement of feeling no desire 
is possible. But, in general, the massive, low-toned 
pleasurable feelings are freest from admixture of desire. 
The rule is that desire characterizes our conscious attitude 
toward those experiences with which remembered or anti- 
cipated pleasure has become connected. Though, as Dr. 
Ward has said, "instances are by no means wanting of 
very imperious desires accompanied by a clear knowledge 
that their gratification will be positively distasteful." 
But (3) desire is, of all conditions of consciousness, most 
nearly continuous with what we call "willing." What 
we strongly desire that we will, unless some inhibitory 
influence checks the transition from the one conscious state ' 
to the other. "I will have " follows naturally upon "I 
badly want." For there is a dynamic element in desire 
which partakes more of the nature of conation than of 
feeling, as such. Desire is not, however, identical with 
choice or decision, or accomplished will. How desire dif- 
fers from the completed "deed of will " will appear later. 

Doubtless the complexity of those different forms of appetitive 
consciousness, to which the name " Desire " is given, accounts for the 
confused views of psychology on the subject. Thus Rabier, after 
analyzing correctly every desire into three elements — a sensational 
(or affective), a representative, and a dynamic — makes the rather 
sentimental attempt to reduce them all to love, with its aspiration to 
possess its object. Other writers would reduce all desires to forms 
of the Ego's effort. 

It may be argned against the dependence of desires upon definite 
mental representation of an object, that children show signs at an 
early age of a variety of desires, and that many adults, particularly 
of a certain temperament, are habitually under the influence of vague 



IMPULSE, INSTINCT, AND DESIRE 165 

and undefined desires. But such conscious states should rather be 
spoken of as impulsive than as- kinds of desire. There is, indeed, a 
condition of restlessness and feeling of the oppression of ennui, which 
is the fault, the charm, the danger, and the secret, of the most brill- 
iant minds. The entertainment of a varying show of ideals operates 
to produce fleeting and shifting forms of appetitive consciousness, 
which have certain characteristics of desire. But whether it be 
Madame de Stael or the average American girl of fourteen, such 
experiences belong to the vague cravings and impulsive wilfulness 
of unorganized mental life. Desires mean some definite business on 
hand in the way of attaining an object. Strength of desires belongs 
rather to the masculine and adult mind. 

Conflict of Desires. — The very nature of our experience 
of the effect of willing upon the gratification of desires is 
such as to bring about a conflict between them. Indeed, 
inhibition of desire is customarily the solution of a case 
of conflict. In the complicated conditions of human liv- 
ing, all our desires tend to become conditional ; we desire 
" if" or we desire " although " and " in spite of" or " be- 
cause." The lazy schoolboy hates his lessons ; he desires 
not their mastery. But, again, he desires to get his les- 
son, because he desires the promised half-holiday or desires 
to escape punishment. All this is indirect proof that, 
while impulse is blind, and instinct only appears to, but 
actually does not, regard intelligently the end, desire is 
more significant of the development of imagination and 
thought. 

The inevitable conflict of desires would seem to give 
over the field of consciousness to the possession of the 
stronger desires. And, indeed, this would be true if the 
subject of the conscious states were a being of desires 
merely. What actually takes place in all "pure" con- 
flicts of desire is, either (1) the desire A overcomes the 
desire B and leads on to its own appropriate deed of will ; 
or else (2) A and B hold each other in check and prevent 
the satisfaction of either, while dividing the appetitive 



166 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

state between themselves, as it were. It is thus that 
habitually triumphant desires become absorbing passions 
and disturb the entire mental development, no matter how 
originally "noble" such desires were. We read, for ex- 
ample, of one Montelli, whose desire for the acquisition 
of knowledge had made him a sordid intellectual miser, 
a monstrously learned and yet useless wretch. But the 
develojmient of intellect and imagination under the influ- 
ence of sesthetical, ethical, and other practical considera- 
tions, tempers the results of the conflict of desires. 

Satisfaction of Desire. — • The attainment of the object of 
desire is followed by a unique feeling of "easement" — 
the pleasurable state of satisfaction. There is always a 
certain amount of painful tension connected with the con- 
tinuance of strong desire. This painful tension is often 
much increased by the swaying of the stream of conscious- 
ness from side to side between conflicting desires. In not 
a few cases the bare relief from this condition of painful 
tension is the most pleasurable thing connected with the 
attainment of the desired object. In such cases, "satis- 
faction " is chiefly a consciousness of release from strain. 
Where this pleasant relaxation from strain is united with 
the happiness in possession of the longed-for object, the 
satisfaction of desire is, above all other conditions of con- 
sciousness, itself most to be desired. This experience 
of all sane and normal minds is a complete refutation of 
the perverse claim of Schopenhauer, that the satisfaction 
of desire necessarily results in experiencing the misery of 
satiety — to be succeeded by new misery of ungratified 
desire. 

Kinds of Desire. — It is convenient, in order to under- 
stand the place of our desires in the total development of 
the mental life, that we should classify them according 
to the mental processes with which they are connected. 
There may then be distinguished, (1) Sensuous desires, 



IMPULSE, INSTINCT, AND DESIRE 167 

or those which arise out of bodily cravings and find their 
satisfaction in some physical object; (2) Intellectual 
desires, or those cravings which arise from the constitu- 
tion of the mind as intellect, and have their satisfaction 
in certain intellectual activities, or states; (3) Sentimental 
desires, or those which arise in the contemplation of ideals 
of beauty or of moral goodness; and (4) a class which 
may be called pathological, and which comprises all the 
overgrowths, or monstrous growths, from other forms of 
desires. 

Finally, we are reminded that the character of the 
mind's desires cannot be understood as separated from its 
entire development. My desires cannot be weighed and 
estimated as something apart from me. They do, indeed, 
often seem to take the position of impulses received like 
impacts from without — felt by the mind, but not of the 
mind. Yet, again, it is even more true that, as a man's 
dominant desires are, so is he. 

[On Impulse and Instinct, comp. James : The Principles of Psy- 
chology, I, xxiv ; Romanes : Mental Evolution in Man ; and Lloyd 
Morgan : Animal Life and Intelligence. Valuable observations are 
to be found in Preyer : Mind of the Child, I, xi ; Perez : L'Education 
des le Berceau. Among German monographs are Schneider : Der 
Thierische Wille; and Santlus : Zur Psychologie d. menschlichen 
Triebe. The fuller treatment of Desire is to be found in works 
on Ethics: see especially Sidgwick : The Methods of Ethics, iv; and 
Leslie Stephen : Science of Ethics, ii.] 



CHAPTER IX 

PERCEPTION BY THE SENSES 

All knowledge of things, and all the general principles 
which psychological science can establish as to the condi- 
tions and laws of such knowledge, must take their start 
from — 

The Fact of Perception by the Senses. — It is matter of 
universal experience that the adult man learns much about 
the qualities and behavior of things by coming into what 
appears as a "face-to-face" relation with them through 
his senses. Let one open one's eyes upon a landscape or 
upon any object in a landscape. At once, as it seems, a 
"field of consciousness " arises which consists of a number 
of objects set in relations of space to each other, — a tree 
here, a house there, and over yonder a background of 
mountain. Or let one gaze fixedly at any particular ob- 
ject, and at once it is known as having a certain size and 
position (up and down, right and left), and as colored 
white, or red, or green. Or again, let one approach any 
tree and touch or push against it ; one is immediately con- 
scious of its more solid qualities of extended resistance. 
One knows without argument that one must pass around 
it in order to reach the other side. 

Such experiences as these are every-day matters. In- 
deed, we may almost say that our life, hour by hour, is 
largely made up of similar experiences. For, although 
considerable periods may elapse without our making an 
attentive examination of our perceptions, either for pur- 
poses of psychological science or of serious practical im- 
port, we are all the while largely guided by them. For 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF PERCEPTION 169 

example, I am directed more safely along the path where 
my daily interests take me by this series of perceptions, 
because they are too familiar to attract, or to need, much 
attention for themselves. Again, in reading, it is the flow 
of ideas to which my mind is chiefly attentive ; but if I do 
not mind the series of printed symbols, to some extent at 
least, I cannot apprehend the author's ideas. 

Definition of Perception by the Senses. — In a preliminary 
way such experiences as have just been described may be 
defined as constituting perception ; and, therefore, Percep- 
tion is the consciousness, or immediate "awareness," of exter- 
nal objects by the senses. Some such descriptive sentence 
as this would probably be satisfactory to almost all adult 
minds. For the undoubted fact of experience seems to 
be that (1) at once and without any intervention of men- 
tal processes occupying time, we become aware of (2) an 
external object — a thing "set out" of us and "spread 
out" in space; and this (3) by the senses, without assist- 
ance from memory, imagination, or reasoning. Not one 
of these three assumptions, however, accords strictly with 
the conclusions of a scientific psychology. 

Such an analysis as any plain man may make reveals 
abundant reasons for modifying this definition of sense- 
perception. For (1) any one may readily establish the 
fact that, after all, it does take time to perceive some 
things at least, and that, in the case of unfamiliar and 
complicated objects, we are often in doubt as to what we 
have perceived, even after considerable time. That all 
perceptions require time is readily proved by laboratory 
experiments. (2) Moreover, from the psychological point 
of view, every one's perception is, of course, his own men- 
tal affair; the object is that of which he is conscious, a 
"field" of his consciousness — to use the phrase already 
explained (p. 24 f.). But the same object is in this case 
"external," a real thing "set outside" and "spread out- 



170 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

side " of him. How can this be ? Whence comes this 
externality in which the object is said to be perceived? 
(3) Once more, it is not difficult to discover the fiction in 
the phrases, "unaided senses," or "mere sense." For if 
the case is one of any complication or difficulty, the per- 
ceiver himself knows that he is trying "to make up his 
mind " as to what the object really is. He looks, instead 
of merely seeing; or listens, instead of merely hearing ; or 
feels with active hand, or other movable organ of the body, 
instead of merely letting the object come into passive re- 
lations with his skin. But looking, listening, feeling, 
are activities involving conation, ideation, discriminating 
and discerning consciousness. They issue in a judgment 
pronounced: "It is this [or that] particular object." 

The bearing of this plain man's analysis, and of the 
much more complete analysis of psychological science, 
upon our views as to the nature and development of sense- 
perception will appear later on. 

Problem of Perception. — To the unreflecting mind there 
appears to be no mystery about our daily use of the senses. 
To such a mind there is no problem of perception. Illu- 
sions and hallucinations seem indeed interesting. The 
phenomena of hypnotism, telepathy, and so-called spiritu- 
alism, appear profoundly mysterious. But just ordinary, 
every-day seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling 
of things — what that is problematical or scientifically 
interesting can there be in these common-place conscious 
states ? For the genuine scientific man and the devoted 
student of science, however, the case is precisely reversed. 
Ordinary perceptions are most interesting, most pro- 
foundly mysterious. And there is very little doubt that 
the scientific mastery of these will one day give us the 
key to all the wonders in which the lovers of the marvel- 
lous find their chief delight. 

Perception by the senses is, then, a profound and diffi- 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF PERCEPTION 171 

cult problem. It is rather a long series, or a confusing 
tangle, of problems. They may all, however, be stated 
conveniently in some such way as the following: Hoiv, 
by combination and development of the elementary processes 
already described, does the seeming " immediate awareness " 
of the objects of sense, as external and extended, come about f 

Physiological Conditions of Perception. — • The coordinated 
functioning of all the parts of the body concerned in the 
act of perception — no less than this — constitutes the 
physiological conditions of perception. Two sets of fac- 
tors, however, are especially important. These are (1) the 
combined and purposeful movement of the external organs ; 
and (2) the formation and use, in combination, of "asso- 
ciation-tracts " — particularly between the lower and the 
upper parts (the hemispheres) of the brain, and between 
the different centres of the upper parts of the brain. The 
first set of factors is made necessary because, as will appear 
later, it is only by active use of movable external organs 
that actual "perception," as distinguished from the merely 
theoretical having of sensations, can take place at all. 
The second set of factors is made necessary, because all 
the elementary mental processes, and all the nervous cen- 
tres of the brain whose functions form the physical basis 
of these processes, are correlated and combined in the 
complex activity of perception. Two principles more 
important to understand than these cannot be conceived 
of in connection with this subject. 

Perception as involving Many Processes. — The problem of 
perception as' just stated has been made to include one im- 
portant truth in its own answer. This is the truth that 
perception, as an adult experience, does come about by com- 
bination and development of more elementary processes. 
Let us now expand this statement into the following five 
particulars : (1) Complex forms of sensation, due to differ- 
ent admixtures of qualitatively and quantitatively like or 



172 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

unlike sensations, and varying in a discernible way accord- 
ing to the locality of the organ stimulated, serve as 
"local signs." (2) Representative images of past sense- 
experiences recur in consciousness and "fuse " with these 
complex sensations and with one another, to determine 
the object as relative to other objects. (3) Feelings of 
interest, expectation, familiarity, or shock of surprise, 
etc., and having a "tone" of pleasure or pain, influence 
the speed and the character of the interpretation given to 
the sensations. (4) Attention, especially as influenced by 
these feelings and as "focused" and "distributed" in 
the complex field of consciousness, chiefly decides the 
character of the perceived object. (5) Discriminating 
consciousness, which assimilates, differences, analyzes, 
synthesizes, and judges, makes "intelligible," as it were, 
the complex forms of sensation-experience. 

Besides all this it will appear that certain laws of our 
mental life, or unvarying forms of the functioning of the 
mind, must be admitted in order to give to ourselves any- 
thing approaching a complete account of sense-perception. 
We can scarcely take the first steps in this science with- 
out recognizing the truth that perception by the senses is 
something far more, and quite other, than an "aggregation," 
or "agglomeration,' 1 '' or "association," of sense-impressions 
passively received. 

The word "perception" has been variously employed by psychol- 
ogists of varying views. This variation is chiefly concerned with the 
difference between sensations and perceptions. The so-called "sensa- 
tional school " would resolve this difference mainly into one of com- 
plexity. But, as will appear, the difference is much more than this ; 
and, so far as can be determined, the development of perception moves 
quite as much from that which is obscure and complex to that which 
is complex but clear, as from the merely simple to the clearly 
complex. Perception, then, involves growth in discrimination. 

Other writers admit an element of representation in all perception. 
Thus Binet defines it as " the process by which the mind completes a 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF PERCEPTION 173 

process of sense by an escort of images." The more detailed state- 
ment of Sully is as follows : " Perception is that process by which the 
mind, after discriminating and classing a sensation or sensation- 
complex, supplements it by an accompaniment or escort of revived 
sensations, the whole aggregate of actual and revived sensations being 
integrated or solidified into the form of a percept." According to 
Professor James, too, " perception differs from sensation by the farther 
facts associated with the object of sensation." Present perception is, 
then, relative to our remembered and ideated experiences. 

We shall show, however, that it is not proper even to speak of an 
"object of sensation." [Sully's reference to the "discriminating," 
" integrating," and " classing " activity of mind is in evidence here. 
Even Mr. Spencer speaks of perception as a discerning of the relation 
or relations between states of consciousness.] 

The full difference between sensations and perception, as we con- 
ceive of the latter, can be stated only by giving the entire doctrine of 
perception. In a word, however, we may say : Sensations are those 
modifications of consciousness which are produced by external stimuli, 
when such modifications are, for theoretical purposes, considered only 
as passive forms of conscious content ; while perception includes also 
all the activities of the mind regarded as engaged in, and as develop- 
ing the faculty of, the immediate cognition of external and extended 
objects. We have sensations; but we perceive objects. 

Sensation-Factors of All Perception 

It has already been made clear that our ordinary sense- 
experience results from a "fusion" of many sensation- 
processes into a complex result. This fact makes necessary 
some further treatment of the following topic : — 

The Nature of " Sensation-Complexes." — The whole con- 
struction and the activity of the nervous system provides 
for the fusion in one so-called "sensation-mass" of many 
different sensation-factors or simple sensations. These, 
so far as we may regard them merely as " data" of percep- 
tion, are given to consciousness already fused. The ear- 
lier work of discriminating attention is, therefore, chiefly 
analytic. The case of the skin illustrates this truth. I 
feel the marble to be, at one and the same time, cold, 



174 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

smooth, and solid. But the cold-feeling of the extended 
object results from the fusion of many temperature-sensa- 
tions due to the excitement of a great number of cold- 
spots. The smooth-feeling comes from the fusion of many 
pressure-sensations ; while the sensations which indicate 
its solidity are the resultant of intermingling factors from 
muscles, skin, and joints (see p. 69 f.). 

All the sensations, by interpretation of which we arrive 
at the perception of external and extended objects, are 
sensation-complexes. They are mixtures of sensation tvhich 
have an indefinite variety of compound characteristics, but 
which also have some specific sensuous character that is prom- 
inent in the compound. 

Sensation-Complexes of Hearing. — Among all sensations 
those of hearing are freest from original mixture with 
other kinds of sensuous experience. These sensations 
are "purest," and mix most with each other alone and 
least with other kinds of sensations. The merely acoustic 
character of a " clang " (see p. 65) is a pure sensation- 
complex of sound. But, plainly, some of our sense-con- 
sciousness inseparably connected with hearing sounds is 
not purely acoustic. The perception of a door slam con- 
sists partly in feeling the massive vibrations of the air 
not only as they are communicated to the ear but also as 
they beat against the other bodily surfaces. Any one sit- 
ting with one's back closely pressed against a board in 
contact with a grand organ that is being played appre- 
ciates the massiveness of the sounds by the vibrating mole- 
cules of the entire trunk. We shall see subsequently 
how all space-perception by the ear involves the fusion 
of other sensations, and images of sensations, with those 
which are purely acoustic. 

Sensation-Complexes of Sight. — Sensations of color and of 
light never arise in adult consciousness as "pure " sensa- 
tions of this particular kind. It is things which we see ; 



SENSATION-FACTORS OF ALL PERCEPTION 175 

and this "seeing " is not with the retina alone. The eyes 
are constructed so as to be moved; and it is with mov- 
ing eyes that our perception of external visual objects is 
attained. Hence with sensations of color and light there 
are always blended the effects of past and present move- 
ments of the lenses and of the entire eye-balls. Tactual 
and muscular sensations result from using the mechanism 
of vision ; these tactual and muscular sensations fuse with 
those of light and color in the constitution of all visual 
"sensation-masses." In other words, sensations of light 
and color are experienced, not as pure and apart, but as 
fused with tactual and muscular sensations due to unfin- 
ished, or just completed, or anticipated movements of the 
eye. 

Sensation-Complexes of Skin, Joints, and Muscles. — We 
have already illustrated the nature of all sensation-com- 
plexes by reference to the mutually helpful action of skin, 
joints, and muscles. We shall show later how the "ex- 
ternality" of all objects is obtained and emphasized by 
the combined use of these organs. Skin, joints, and mus- 
cles are, from the first, and ceaselessly, forced into the closest 
copartnership of activity. The skin is passively affected 
by having its areas more or less severely pressed upon. 
The muscles, too, are probably affected so as to result in 
sensory modifications of consciousness, by the pressure of 
sufficiently heavy masses on the skin. And joints crowded 
together feel differently from joints pulled more or less 
apart. When the muscles are active, the skin which is 
stretched ovei 1 them, or which is in contact with the sur- 
face of the object being explored by the moving organ, is 
modified in a way to keep pace with the contraction and 
relaxation of the muscles. Such a combination of inter- 
dependent activities results in a continuous flow of sensa- 
tion-complexes of several different orders or kinds. This 
flowing and changing "sensation-mass" is especially 



176 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

favorable to that interpretation which the externality 
and extension of things require. 

Sensations of Motion. — A characteristic modification of 
sensory consciousness is occasioned by stimulating closely 
contiguous areas of the retina, especially when the eye is 
also permitted to move. The same thing is true of the 
skin with its accompaniment of muscular and joint sen- 
sations. Such modifications may be called "sensation- 
complexes of motion." The sensation-complexes of taste, 
smell, and hearing, of themselves considered, do not admit 
of similar modification. In saying even this, however, 
we must allow for a certain amount of " interpretation " 
of these motor changes as a necessary condition of their 
being converted into sensations of motion. The truth of 
fact is that certain sensation-complexes of the eye, and of the 
skin (muscle- and joint-action included'), experienced as com- 
pound changes of quality, are immediately and instinctively 
interpreted as " sensations of motion." We may differ as 
to how this interpretation comes about; the stages of it 
may be discriminated in different ways; the degrees of 
it and the time of its origin may be made the subject 
of debate. The fact of experience remains the same. 
Changes of complex quality in the flow of our sense- 
experience are interpreted as movements of things — 
either over the different areas of our bodies or through 
the space surrounding our bodies. Such interpretation is 
made possible for the eye and the skin by the characteris- 
tics of the sensation-complexes which the stimulation of 
their different contiguous areas calls forth. 

The final purpose of so early and inevitable development of sensa- 
tions of motion is not difficult to guess. As a matter of fact, all ani- 
mals, including man, are peculiarly sensitive to those modifications of 
consciousness which signify motion. Their very life and all their 
welfare depends upon this sensitiveness. " Knack of interpretation " 
in the case of these sensation-complexes — without, of course, clear 



SENSATION-FACTORS OF ALL PERCEPTION 177 

consciousness of the significance of the experience — marks the ear- 
liest unfolding of man's mental life. 

The motor sensitiveness of the different areas of the skin can be 
experimentally tested. Two observers, for example, found that the 
motion of a metallic point, moving at the rate of 2 mm. per second, 
could be discriminated when it had amounted to 0.20 mm. on the 
forehead, to 0.40 mm. on the upper arm, and to 0.85 mm. on the back. 
But the same point could be moved so slowly as to travel a distance 
of 6-12 cm., and not be sensed as moving at all. From similar experi- 
ments two facts become established : (1) Sensation-complexes must 
change their compound quality discernibly in order to be interpreted 
as sensations of motion ; and (2) the compound quality of these sen- 
sations does change discernibly, but with differing degrees of rapidity, 
for different areas of the nervous mechanism. Even passive bending 
of the finger was found by Goldscheider to occasion sensations of 
motion when the arc of its bending was not more than 0.60° to 1.74°. 

Visual sensations of motion, with a motionless eye-ball, may be 
produced in either of two ways : by stimulating contiguous elements 
of the retina in close succession of time, or by stimulating the same 
groups of elements with closely successive color-tones. Holmgren 
showed that wdien we look at very faint and fine points of light with 
the eyes elevated, the images seem to move upward in the direction 
of muscular exertion. Thus sensations of muscular tension may ex- 
press themselves as sensations of visual motion. The sleeping cat, in 
the picture on the card, opens its eyes when we change, with the right 
speed, the object as it appears in reflected light (since the colors on 
the front of the paper correspond to eyes "shut") to the object as it 
appears in transmitted light (since the colors on the back, which now 
shine through, correspond to eyes "open "). Just now the country is 
full of shows which have their success in substituting a changing 
series of different images (" kinetoscopic pictures") for a series of 
actual movements of objects in space. 

Sensations of Position. — Here the fact is that the corn- 
found quality of certain sensation-complexes of eye and skin 
(including the muscles and joints'), with the feeling of the 
accompanying tendencies to motor activities, is interpreted as 
"sensations of positio?i." To speak popularly, the skin 
"feels " differently as its different areas are pressed upon 
by the same objects; the eye "feels" differently at the 



178 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

different angles of its possible positions, — to the right, 
left, up, or down ; the limbs " feel " differently according 
to the different positions reached by them, whether pas- 
sively or actively. Two principles with regard to the 
origin and development of sensation-complexes of position 
seem to be capable of defence : (1) Sensations of position 
are dependent upon previous sensations of motion, and 
upon the recall of the images of these sensations. (2) Sen- 
sations of position involve at least that low degree of dis- 
criminating consciousness which enters into every kind of 
"tact." These sensation-complexes, on account of differ- 
ences in their compound quality, admit of interpretation 
which signifies differences that lie beyond themselves. 
But if there had been no previous experience with the 
organs in action — no net-work of sensations and series of 
sensations of motion, — such interpretation would be quite 
impossible. The significance which sensation- complexes of 
position attain in the way of defining the spatial qualities 
and spatial relations of external objects is dependent upon 
a previous experience of sensation-complexes of motion. 

Experiments to determine the " sense of locality " belonging to 
different areas of the skin began with E. H. Weber's classical dis- 
covery. By using the two points of a pair of compasses, so covered 
as to avoid the sensation of being pricked, he found that when these 
points were separated 1 mm. on the tip of the tongue, and 2 mm. on 
the volar side of the last phalanx of the finger, they could be discrim- 
inated as two : a separation of 68 mm. was, however, necessary for 
the same act of discrimination on the middle of the back. This 
variation cannot be due to fixed degrees of original sensitiveness to 
stimuli in the physical organ. For it may be reduced by practice; 
and practice on one side of the body increases the power of discrimi- 
nation for the corresponding parts of the other side. Speaking figura- 
tively, the "sensation-circles" of the different areas of the skin vary 
greatly ; and the discriminating sensibility of this organ is in the 
inverse ratio of the size of these circles for its different areas. 

The nature of the sensations of position which develop in the use 
of the eye is much more obscure. It has been long known that stars 



SENSATION-FACTORS OF ALL PERCEPTION 179 

not more than 70"-30" apart can be discerned as separate by the best 
observers ; but for other observers the minimum visibile is much larger. 
Now since this distance corresponds pretty well with the calculated 
breadth of the cones in the " yellow-spot " of the retina, it has been 
assumed that visual sensations of position are independent of the 
motion of the eye. Here, however, the psychologist cannot neglect 
the significance of the fact that visual experience is never, from the 
earliest dawn of consciousness, with a motionless and passive retina. 
From the first, the eye is in ceaseless action. And experiment seems 
to show that movements of the muscles, even so exceedingly minute 
as to correspond with the minimum visibile, have a modifying effect 
upon visual sense-consciousness. 

We conclude then, that apparently, our light- and color-sensations are 
localized by means of varying mixtures of sensuous elements derived from 
stimulation of different areas of the retina and accompanying muscular 
and tactual sensations of the moving eye-ball. 

Influence of Attention. — It is most important to notice 
that our sensation-complexes, both of motion and of posi- 
tion, are brought into clear consciousness only by an act 
of attention. Suppose we ask ourselves for a definite 
answer to the question : Whereabouts on the field of my 
eye or skin is the stimulus applied; or in just what posi- 
tion has the organ been passively placed? Such a ques- 
tion is itself a proposal to examine and see. The very 
proposal to direct attention produces important changes 
in the sensory condition of the organ. It alters the capil- 
lary circulation and throws the muscles into a condition 
of tension. Hence it comes about that no peripheral area 
can be stimulated without the resulting sensation- complex 
absorbing into, itself the result of the m,otor changes or tenden- 
cies to change brought about by the attention directed to this 
same sensation- complex. This principle of the absorption 
of the products of attention into the sensation-complex 
must never be neglected. 

Sensation-Complexes as " Local Signs." — We are now ready 
to see the bearing of this enormous variety of nicely graded 
mixtures of sensation upon our scientific study of percep- 



180 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

tion by the senses. It is not fair, of course, secretly to 
convert these mixtures of our sensations into qualities and 
relations of external objects. The development of intel- 
lect, according to its own laws, will have to give us the 
fuller account of this process of " converting " — if we may 
use, for the moment, so ambiguous a term. We may see, 
however, what a system of sense-experiences is provided, 
and how it is fitted to lend itself to the mind's discrimi- 
nating and interpretative activity. Or, rather, we may 
see what a vast differentiation of our sense-experience 
may be systematized by the interpreting work of discrimi- 
nating consciousness. 

The theory of "local signs " depends upon the following 
apparently well-established fact: The total compound char- 
acteristic of every distinguishable mixture of sensations 
changes with the locality of the organ where the excitement 
occasioning that particular mixture originates. Thus these 
mixtures are able to "signify" the different positions 
and motions which our bodies and external objects may 
assume or undergo. The limit of the differentiation of 
these mixtures is the limit of our ability to discriminate 
differences of locality, and so differences in the size, 
shape, and space-relations of things. 

Even an unskilled analysis illustrates and enforces the existence 
and usefulness of so-called "local signs." Let any one rub gently 
together the tips of the two corresponding fingers, and attend strictly 
to the series of sensation-complexes thus produced. If the finger 
(Fr) of the right hand differs greatly in the texture of its tip from 
the corresponding finger on the left hand (Fi), — if, for example, Fr 
has not, and Fi has, a callous spot — then the sensation-complexes of 
the two fingers will be easily distinguishable, as such. But if the two 
fingers are alike in texture, the sensation-complexes corresponding 
to the two may be indistinguishable in respect of their compound 
quality. The results in perception will be as follows : F', having the 
callous spot, on being lightly pressed against Fr, will appear as a 
foreign body being touched. But if sensation-complexes Fi = Fr, then 



PRINCIPLES OF ALL PERCEPTION 181 

either finger may be regarded as touching the other, or as being 
touched. Yet, again in this case, by moving either finger we can 
easily compel ourselves to regard Fi as touching Fr, or Fr as touching 
Fi. The moving finger is touching ; the finger held still is being- 
touched. 

It accords, too, with the theory of local signs that Binet, following- 
Weber's experiments, though with important modifications, comes to 
these conclusions : (1) " The sensations provoked by the two points 
of the compasses are of different quality when the subject perceives 
the two points; (2) the sensations provoked by the two points of the 
compasses are of the same quality when the subject perceives a single 
point." 

General View of Perception by the Senses 

Principles of all Development of Sense-Perception. — It fol- 
lows from our entire study of the facts that the knowledge 
of extended and external objects is a development. This 
is as true of that kind of knowledge which is called per- 
ception, and which appears to be immediate and "face- 
to-face," as it is of our knowledge about things, or our 
scientific knowledge. But the conditions and laws of the 
two kinds of knowledge are not the same. For example, 
the knowledge that the water in this tumbler is, chemi- 
cally considered, H 2 0, or that it has such a standard spe- 
cific gravity, differs greatly, in its character and grounds, 
from the knowledge gained by looking at and lifting this 
particular tumbler of water. Just now, however, it is of 
this perceptive knowledge that we wish to maintain : It, 
too, is the result of a development. The theory of sense- 
perception is scarcely more than a history of the develop- 
ment of sense-perception. Proof and illustration will, 
then, occupy us through the remainder of the chapter. 
But it is well to precede this more detailed examina- 
tion by clearer recognition of three important points. 

(1) There is no complete break anywhere in the devel- 
opment of sense-perception. The principle of continuity 
applies here. Yet important stages may, for theoretical 



182 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

purposes, be recognized. In the evolution of the chick, 
the continuity of process is to be emphasized; but hatch- 
ing is an important event for the growing bird. So there 
is no marked time when the infant — to speak figuratively 
— gets consciously out of its own shell of sensation-com- 
plexes, whether " of motion," or " of position," into a world 
of external objects. No voice, as of a trumpet, announces 
the arrival of a clear consciousness of the extension and 
externality of things. The same powers of an attentive 
and discriminating consciousness are immanent in the 
sense-experience from the first. The "fusion" and "com- 
plexity" of those theoretical factors, which the psycholo- 
gist assumes, — namely, the simple, unlocalized sensa- 
tions, — is an accomplished fact from the beginning. 

(2) Two principal stages in the construction of presen- 
tations of sense may, roughly speaking, be recognized. 
These are sometimes called "localization" and "projec- 
tion " — or "eccentric projection," although there are 
many objections to the use of these figurative terms. 
One stage concerns the growth of discrimination as to the 
different areas of the bodily organism, especially in their 
relations to each other. In it the child is employed in 
"getting acquainted with its own body," in learning how 
the different members feel and look under every variety of 
possible positions and motions. In the other stage dis- 
crimination is busy with the different relations of things 
to the body, and with the different space-qualities and 
relations of things to each other in space. 

Not to anticipate too minutely, it is enough at present 
to say that neither of the two growths of the perceptive 
process can proceed without involving the other. Neither 
of them can proceed without also involving a correlated 
development of the knowledge of Self. I localize the 
thing as "here " or " there," in relation to myself — mean- 
ing by this latter word, my sentient body. But I come to 



PRINCIPLES OF ALL PERCEPTION 183 

form the conception of an inner circle of self-hood, as it 
were, to which I regard the different parts of my own 
body as external, and in relation to which, as a centre of 
perceiving activity, I perceive both things and bodily mem- 
bers in a system of localized objects. 

(3) In the complicated history of the development of 
sense-perception, certain senses have a part far more promi- 
nent than that which can be assigned to the others. It is 
our sense-experience gained through the eyes, and through 
the skin, muscles, and joints, which gives the "face-to- 
face " knowledge of things as "out " and "spread out " of 
ourselves. Perception, as "the immediate awareness" of 
external and extended objects, comes primarily by Sight 
and Touch alone. The other senses give secondary and 
more inferential knowledge of the qualities of objects, as 
those objects have already been perceived by sight and 
touch. The red-colored extensions, with their velvety 
"feel," which I hold in my hand, are the rose; the smell 
which I localize, as also "felt " in the areas of my nostrils, 
is the smell of the rose. 

The so-called " Spatial Senses." — The truth just stated is 
so necessary for understanding the development of percep- 
tion by the senses as to need further consideration. All 
detailed study of the perceptions of the different senses 
will illustrate it. The spatial qualities and spatial rela- 
tions of things are made known to us by sight and touch 
— using this latter word to include sensations of the mus- 
cles and joints, as well as of the skin. Such qualities 
and relations are not made known to us by smell and taste, 
exclusive of touch. The negative statement applies less 
obviously to hearing ; still, it does apply to hearing also. 

If inquiry be made into this preeminence of these two 
kinds of our sense-experience over the other kinds, the 
three following reasons may be given for it. These rea- 
sons have chiefly to do with the character of the sensation- 



184 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

complexes excited successively by the stimulation of the 
different localities of the organs of sense. Only the eye 
and the skin (including muscles and joints) are capable of 
giving rise to "spatial series "of s.ensation-complexes. 

More especially, (1) fyjatial series of sensations pos- 
sess a system of local signs, as non-spatial series do not. 
Smells, tastes, and tones, as such, are not variable in 
such a manner as definitely to "signify" the locality of 
the organs in the excitement of which they originate. 
(2) Spatial series admit of easy, frequent, and rapid repe- 
tition, in varying order of arrangement, as non-spatial 
series do not. Thus, we shall see that sensations of the 
eye, and of the skin, muscles, and joints, run through 
graded series that may be repeated in a variety of direc- 
tions; while those of the organs of taste and smell do 
not. (3) Two spatial series of sensation-complexes, 
when experienced simultaneously, or in close succes- 
sion, are comparable and associable with each other. 
Non-spatial series are not to the same extent compara- 
ble and associable with each other. In the case of hear- 
ing, however, the graded series of sounds is such as to be 
comparable and associable with the muscular and tactual 
sensations awakened by listening to the sounds. Thus the 
ear stands, in some sort, midway between the more defi- 
nitely spatial and the most completely non-spatial senses. 

"Nativist" and "Empiricist" Views. — There are certain 
questions connected with the development of perception 
by the senses which it is difficult, or impossible, to answer 
fully. Any answer, whether an affirmative or a negative 
answer, fails of establishing itself upon a perfectly firm 
basis either of introspection, or of memory, or of experi- 
ment. Such are some of the questions in debate between 
the different theories of perception. 

Our analysis of the sense data, however, enables us to 
reply, with considerable confidence, to the following three 



PRINCIPLES OF ALL PERCEPTION 185 

important inquiries. (1) Do sensation-complexes which 
include no motor elements ever possess primarily — that 
is, without fusion or association with sensations of motion 
or of position clue to previous experience of motion — the 
attribute of extensity ? To this question we have already 
given in part our reasons -for a negative answer. (2) Have 
the most primitive sensations of light and color — the 
shades which might be produced by moving the object 
over the field of a perfectly motionless eye — the attribute 
of extensity? Here, again, though not so positively, we 
are inclined to a negative answer. Discriminating con- 
sciousness, as practised with a moving eye, is necessary 
to the vaguest perception of "bigness" as belonging to 
visual sensation-complexes. But then we have this 
practice with a moving eye from the very dawn of con- 
sciousness, in the case of all normal infants. (3) Is the 
perception of the size and contour of motionless objects, 
when in contact with the skin, dependent upon the images 
of past sensations of muscular and tactual sort, acquired 
with motion of the organs? This question, too, should 
be answered in accordance with the same view of the func- 
tions of the sensory-motor mechanism : It is thus depend- 
ent. 

All perception of extended and external objects is, then, 
acquired as a matter of growing experience. Thus far our 
conclusion agrees with the empiricist. But no perception 
of external and extended objects is the mere result of the 
fusion and associatioti of sensations. From the start, the 
psychologist' is obliged to recognize the activity of dis- 
criminating consciousness, at work according to laws of 
mental life. In other words, the "native" character of 
mind shows itself in constituting its own sense-experience 
as a system of interrelated objects, external and extended 
in space. This conclusion accords with the nativistic 
position. 



186 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

By a " nativist " is ordinarily understood one who assumes the 
cognition of the spatial qualities and relations of objects as due to a 
native power of the mind ; he, therefore, denies that any analysis of 
experience can account for that which, as he holds, the mind does 
not acquire by experience. By an "empiricist," on the other hand, 
is generally understood one who holds that the perception of space- 
qualities and space-relations is acquired ; he denies that we have any 
right to speak of a native " intuition " of space. As extreme, old- 
fashioned nativists may be instanced the Scottish School; they, on 
the basis of the testimony of crude, unanalyzed, adult consciousness, 
taught that all kinds of sensations are from the first intuitively known 
as external and extended objects. A modified, scientific nativism, of 
a carefully limited character and based upon a searching analysis of 
sense-consciousness, has been held by writers like Stumpf in Germany, 
Ward in England, and James in this country. These writers attrib- 
ute " extensity," or primordial " bigness," to all sensations as such. 
Professor James also holds that movement is not necessary to space- 
consciousness, but only renders it more definite. 

Our position differs from both classes of writers just referred to, 
but agrees in the main with a considerable number of the best 
authorities. With Professor Sully we hold that, "whatever the pre- 
cise nature of this primitive ' massiveness,' it seems reasonable to 
conclude that it requires the incorporation of motor ideas before it 
becomes spatial, as we understand the term." More decidedly : We 
hold unequivocally that perception ivithout motor consciousness is impossi- 
ble. Finally, we hold that to speak of the "extensity," as distin- 
guished from the intensity of smells, tastes, sounds, as such, is absurd. 
On the other hand, we admit that no theory of perception is adequate 
which recognizes merely the fusion and association of sensation-com- 
plexes under the principles of habit, of contiguity, and of similarity 
or contrast. A constructive intellectual activity must also be recognized. 
And the constitutional forms of this activity, which the most search- 
ing and thorough analysis is compelled to admit, may fitly be spoken 
of as " native " to the Mind. 

We may, therefore, now declare, what will be at once 
proved and illustrated in detail by a consideration of the 
perceptions gained by the different senses, namely : — 

A Summary of the General Conditions of Sense-Perception. 

— Two or more series of sensation-complexes, having the 
characteristics of " spatial series" and belonging to the 



PRINCIPLES OF ALL PERCEPTION 187 

same or to different organs of sense, occur simultaneously 
or in immediate succession ; they are frequently repeated 
in this close conjunction in consciousness, and become asso- 
ciated with conative impulses that result in movements of 
accommodation ; representative images and traces of conative 
impulse due to this frequent repetition, are combined with, 
and habitually suggested by, similar sensation-complexes in 
every new experience ; feelings of interest, expectation, etc., 
become the habitual affective accompaniments of this compli- 
cated " mass " of sensation- and ideation-elements ; and dis- 
criminating and relating consciousness is ever active {com- 
paring, assimilating, differentiating') to accomplish the higher 
unifying processes which are necessary to the cognition of 
all objects of sense. 

But — it may be inquired with astonishment — does the 
infant begin to accomplish all this complicated product of 
a psychical mechanism? And is the plain man's con- 
sciousness to be accused of such intricate performances 
in the way of practical mastery of things by use of the 
senses in his daily life? To such questions the scientific 
student of mental development is obliged to answer, 
" Yes" ; — and with emphasis. For all that his science can 
disentangle from the "web of conditions which surrounds 
the perfected sense-perceptions of the average mind is but 
a broken and imperfect picture of the actual achievement. 
In this respect, his problems and his success in solving 
them, resemble the experience of his colleague, the biolo- 
gist, who is studying the process of building the organism 
correlated with this psychical development. 

It should also be noted that, in the development of per- 
ception by the senses, any original resemblance to a pas- 
sive copying process becomes constantly more remote. 
For, first, the relative amount of sensation-complexes that 
have a genuine peripheral origin becomes smaller; the 
rela ive amount of the complex processes due to revived 



188 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

ideas, and to rapid judgments habitually performed, be- 
comes greater. Physiologically expressed: perception 
grows more brainy. Psychologically expressed: percep- 
tion becomes more a matter of ideation and of "impul- 
sive " inference (if we may provisionally be allowed such 
a term). But, second, the development of practical and 
theoretical interest in making careful discriminations, 
and of power to make them, results in increasing the 
variety in content of the sensation-complexes. Things 
are taken less "in the lump," as it were. 

Therefore, increase in the wealth of sensuous details and a 
higher ideal and intellectual quality, both belong to the more 
developed sense-perceptions. 

Development of Sense-Perception by the 
Different Senses 

We consider, first, the case of the "non-spatial " senses, 
or those which, of themselves, could give us no perceptions 
of external and extended objects — namely, Smell, Taste, 
and Hearing. 

Perceptions of Smell and Taste. — A certain knowledge of 
things outside of our bodies, and of the masses and move- 
ments of our own bodily organs, comes through the nose, 
and the tongue, roof of the mouth, and soft palate. This 
knowledge is not, however, due to the localization of 
olfactory or gustatory sensation-complexes, as such. 
Smell and taste, properly speaking, have no such system 
of "local signs " as lend themselves to the development of 
the " immediate awareness " of external and extended ob- 
jects (comp. p. 183 f.). They are localized only indirectly, 
on account of their connection with tactual and muscular 
sensations. It is drawing the air over the nostrils, by the 
active process called "sniffing," and rolling the tastable 
substances about in the mouth while they are pressing 



PERCEPTIONS OF HEARING 189 

against its surfaces, that makes objective our various smells 
and tastes. The smell and the taste of anything are quali- 
ties attributed to it by a system of secondary and doubtful 
inferences, but only in case it has already been constructed 
as a thing in terms of sight and touch. , 

Nice perceptive distinctions in the smells and tastes of 
objects do not tell us anything directly about the spatial 
qualities or relations of those objects. Hence they are 
chiefly of biological or sesthetical value. They give 
information as to the probable salubrious character of 
objects ; they quicken or depress our vital energies ; they 
please or disgust us. But they never directly inform us 
how large things are, or what shape things have ; it is only 
by their varying intensities and qualities that we are able 
indirectly to assign them to the things whose smell and 
taste they are. 

It is interesting to observe how the less intellectual men and races 
are often most discriminating in the use of these senses. Haller nar- 
rates that the negroes of the Antilles can distinguish by smell the 
footsteps of a native from those of a Frenchman. Humboldt affirms 
that the Peruvian Indians know the smells peculiar to different races 
of strangers. With this might be compared the claim of the Roman 
epicures to detect by taste the leg on which the partridge had slept 
the night before being killed. Hypnotic subjects sometimes develop 
such an astonishing acuteness of olfactory sense as to distinguish the 
specific odor of the objects belonging to a number of different persons, 
and to assign to each one his own. This is more like an animal 
" cunning " than like the intellectually developed perceptions of the 
average adult man. 

Perceptions of Hearing. — The case of those perceptions 
of extended and external things which are gained by hear- 
ing is not so obvious. No one would think, however, of 
affirming that auditory sensations make us immediately 
aware, in any distinct way, of the size and shape of 
things. If we know certain portions of our own bodies 
as the more or less extended "seats " of the affection, it is 



190 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

plainly because these portions are felt to be set into vibra- 
tion, or pressed upon, or in a condition of muscular tension. 
On the other hand, most sounds are, apparently at once, 
located somewhere outside of our bodies, and are situated 
in a certain direction, and at a certain distance, from us. 
They are also perceived as the sounds "of" this or that 
particular object, — of a striking clock, a passing carriage, 
a friend's voice, etc. The knowledge of the kind of object 
from which the sound emanates is indisputably the result 
of previous experience, which has given to our eye or to 
our hand that particular sort of an object as responsible, 
so to speak, for that particular sort of sound. The inquiry 
is, then, narrowed to this : How do we come to perceive 
sounds as external and as having a particular direction 
and distance ? 

To the question just raised, the analytic treatment of 
ordinary experience and of experimental data gives the 
following probable answer: (1) It is by means of their 
variable complex qualifications, especially by their inten- 
sities, and as fused with sensations and images of motion 
and tension, that sounds are localized ; but (2) they are 
localized in a space already constructed by the eye and by 
skin, muscles, and joints. 

Among the local signs of a tactual and muscular sort 
are the sensations caused by moving the eyes and head, 
primarily in a tentative way, so as to see and face the sound- 
ing object. Sensations of tension or strain, which var}' 
according as, in the effort to hear, we direct attention to 
the right or to the left, in front or behind, also serve as 
indicice. Possibly, also, yet more obscure sensations con- 
nected with the vibrations of the ear drums and the semi- 
circular canals assist in the localization of sounds. When 
this space, in which the ear sets its sensations, is spoken of 
as "already constructed," it is not, of course, meant that 
the ear waits for the spatial organs to develop a complete 



PERCEPTIONS OF TOUCH 191 

system of space-perceptions, before it hears sounds as 
external and in this or that direction. But hearing is 
constantly led by the spatial senses, and is dependent upon 
them for all its achievements in localization. 

As to the distances at which familiar sounds are localized, there is 
no difficulty in recognizing the simple principle. Their varying 
intensities as compared with the memory-images of what may be ex- 
pected at an assumed distance, serve as " local signs." In dreams an 
insignificant crackling in the ears is heard as a cannonading or as a 
series of thunderbolts. The chorus at the opera make the impression 
of retreating to an immense distance by softening their voices ; and 
the oratorio lets us hear the celestial choir by a similar device. 

Recent experiments (by Mr. Matsumoto, in the Yale Psychological 
Laboratory) appear to establish, beyond doubt, the fact that the rela- 
tive intensity of the sounds in the two ears is a chief means for local- 
izing their direction. For if a person is placed in a chair, blindfold 
and mid-way between two stationary telephones of similar quality, 
then the one sound which he hears may be made to pass from side to 
side, around in front or back of the head, or even through the head, 
by varying the difference of the intensities of the two components. 
And the accuracy of localization appears to agree fairly well with the 
difference in these intensities. Possibly additional evidence comes 
from a number of cases where those suffering with anaesthesia of the 
skin of the external meatus and tympanum have been quite unable 
to tell even on which side of the ear the sound was. 

Perceptions of Touch in General. — To avoid useless repe- 
tition, we shall now regard the term "perceptions of 
touch" as including all that seemingly immediate aware- 
ness of external and extended objects which comes through 
the organs of skin, muscles, and joints, whether these 
organs are in-movement or at rest. For purposes of con- 
venience we shall also make a somewhat abrupt separation 
between perceptions gained in this way, of the bodily 
organs themselves, and perceptions of things external to 
the bodily organs. That both these classes of percep- 
tions belong to adult experience admits of no doubt. 
Grown people know by touch and sight, with more or less 



192 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

of definiteness, the smaller areas and larger masses of their 
own bodies. But grown people also know the space 
qualities and space relations of things external to the 
body, by the same organs of sense. 

In the actual development of sense-perception by touch, 
the knowledge of one's own body and the knowledge of 
other bodies are interdependent. The origin and early 
growths of these two classes of touch-perceptions cannot 
be considered apart. But in the later life, the perceptions 
of the relative positions and movements of the bodily 
members drop out of consciousness to a large extent. 
This is because we forget to notice how the different parts 
of the body feel, our practical interests being best served 
by concentrating attention on how things actually are, as 
related in space to one another and to our own bodies. 

The acquirement of perceptions of touch relating to our 
own bodies will first be briefly traced. It must not be 
forgotten, however, that this treatment compels the separa- 
tion in description of what is not separated in experience. 

Touch-Perceptions of the Movements of Parts of the Body. 
— The movements of the newly-born infant are reflex and 
automatic or impulsive. They are not so much by dis- 
criminating consciousness as for it. But however occa- 
sioned, all these early movements result in certain series 
of sensation-complexes being run through in conscious- 
ness which are due to the concurrent excitement of the 
skin, the muscles, and the joints. In the case, too, of 
the most important of the moving organs, the effect of 
sight must be taken into account. But confining the 
present discussion to perceptions of touch, it is plain that 
the repeated movement of any member of the body results 
in "weaving together," as it were, two or more spatial 
series of those sensation-complexes which are necessarily 
run through in accomplishing that particular movement. 
For example, the infant's arm cannot be even passively 



PERCEPTIONS OF TOUCH 193 

moved when it is awake, without producing series of 
changes in the sensation-complexes of its skin, muscles, 
and joints. On repetition of the movement through the 
same arc, the revived mental images of its earlier sense- 
experience fuse with the freshly awaked series of sensa- 
tion-complexes. Such a "sensation-mass,-" fused with 
these ideation-products, and accompanied by affective and 
conative elements, is the moving arm of the infant so far 
as it is perceived in terms of touch. 

Let A be the limb in movement from X to Z, and s, m, and J (skin, 
muscles, joints) the three kinds of sensations evoked. Then by- 
repetition a fusion takes place between the series (s, s v s 2 , s 3 , etc.), 
(m, m v m 2 , m 3 , etc.) and (j,j v j 2 ,j s , etc.). Thus by the principle of 
condensation of series (see p. 142 f.), and in accordance with the laws 
which govern the particular associations (see p. 144 f.), one position 
(Y) of A will be characterized by (s 2 + m 2 + j 2 ), fused with primary 
images of (Sj and s + m 1 and m +j\ and j), just fading out of con- 
sciousness, and reviving images, with a stirring feeling of expecta- 
tion, corresponding to (s 3 + m 3 + j 3 , etc.). What is true of this one 
position (Y) will be true of every other, such as L, M, N, etc. 

Touch-Perceptions of the Positions of Parts of the Body. — 

It has already been shown that sensations of position are 
secondary and are dependent upon previous experience 
with sensations of motion. The same thing is true of the 
relation between perceptions of positions and perceptions 
of movement. Two important differences characterize 
these two kinds of touch-perceptions : (1) Since any part 
of the body, when at rest, must either be held in position 
by its own muscles, or supported in position by some 
external thing or other bodily member, the passive sensa- 
tions of pressure are more prominent in our perceptions 
of position. In the special case, however, where one part 
of the body supports another part, there are two " sensation- 
masses " which invite discriminating attention. These 
correspond, respectively, to the perceptions of "support- 
ing" and "being supported," or "resting upon." But 



194 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

(2) in the perception of the position at rest of the mov- 
able members of the body, we are much more dependent 
upon the accuracy of our memory-images. Experiment 
shows that localization is more inaccurate under these 
conditions. And the experience through which one goes 
in being the subject of experiment reveals the effort to 
imagine how the limb would feel, if only we could move 
it, or could define its position by moving some other part 
of the body over it. 

We now see how the sensation-elements for the percep- 
tion of position are marked off from those for the per- 
ception of movement. The immediate awareness of the 
position of the movable members of the body is largely a 
system of associated ideas due to previous movements. 

Vagueness of First Bodily Perceptions by Touch. — The 
earliest perception of our own bodies by touch consists 
of a vague discrimination of those members which move 
most frequently, and whose movements have a strong 
emotional tone. As rivals in this form of early sense- 
consciousness may be mentioned such bodily parts as are 
more frequently pressed upon or stroked, and which also 
thereupon feel most of pleasure or pain. To the first class 
belong the active arms and legs ; to the second class, the 
more passive but sensitive abdomen, back, and face. 
Confused and crude sensation-masses corresponding to 
these bodily members probably constitute the total touch- 
and muscle-percept of its body for the very young child. 
The adult may produce the nearest representation of these 
early touch-perceptions by directing attention solely to 
the localized sensation-masses, which afford all the "im- 
mediate awareness " he has of his own bodily members as 
felt existences for himself. In conducting such an experi- 
ment, nothing is more suggestive of true theory than the 
"life-likeness" which is put into each particular percep- 
tion when the bodily member is moved, and attention 



PERCEPTIONS OF TOUCH 195 

is clearly directed to the resulting modification of sense- 
consciousness. 

Division of the Bodily Perception-" Mass." — Finer dis- 
criminations of locality upon the surfaces of the skin are 
the later achievements of attentive consciousness. The 
data for such discriminations are the sensation-complexes 
interpreted as local signs, in a manner already described 
(p. 179 f . ) . Prompt and accurate localization of a " where- 
one-is-hit," does not come by any means at first. The 
crying infant, even if it could speak, could not tell the 
place of the pin sticking into its flesh. Even adult dis- 
criminations of this sort are rather inexact for most per- 
sons, and are capable of large improvement under practice 
for all. But the adult has a relatively detailed and precise 
visual picture of most of the bodily surfaces, into which 
he can set, at nearly the correct place, his sensations of 
touch. The infant, on the contrary, has no picture — 
either tactual or visual — into which it can set its 
pain. 

Two principles chiefly govern the breaking-up of this 
"gross mass " of sensation-complexes of touch. (1) Intel- 
lectual development is concerned in, and is gained by, all 
active analysis. The infant cannot map out its tactile and 
muscular body without attaining a considerable growth in 
discriminating consciousness. It grows in power of dis- 
crimination by the continuous and successful effort to 
master the perception of its own body, — by the study of 
its own body's geography. But (2) sensations of motion 
precede and-lead sensations of position in respect of effec- 
tiveness. If, for example, one of the two points of a pair 
of dividers be prepared so that it can be given a rotary 
motion, suddenly rotating it will almost always make 
the points seem two, when just previously they have been 
perceived as a single impression. In general, it is the 
discriminate difference between two most nearly alike sen- 



196 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

sation-complexes, as derived hy motion over the skin, which 
sets the extreme limit to our tactile perception. 

The great value of those means for locating the minuter 
sensation-areas of the skin which are derived from their 
tendency, when stimulated, to motor reactions, accords 
with the same principle. The crawling of an insect makes 
the skin creep or shudder, and calls out a tendency in the 
hand to reach and examine the offended spot. These 
associated feelings and conative impulses become impor- 
tant aids in the refinement and increased accuracy and 
promptness of this form of localization. 

Orienting of the Body in Space. — The perception of the 
mutual relations of the different principal masses of the 
body, and of the entire body to surrounding objects in 
space, is a much more complex affair. It is not ordinarily 
a matter solely, or even chiefly, of the skin, muscles, and 
joints. The feelings of pressure of one part of the body 
upon the contiguous parts, of the movements of part over 
part, and of the swaying, rolling, and settling, etc. — 
especially of the internal and less fixed masses, — all afford 
data for this complex perception. But in the case of all 
persons not born blind, a previous construction of space 
and of spatial relations by the eye is to be assumed. 

In all the complex work of orienting our body in rela- 
tion to external objects, the position assumed by the head 
is of the greatest importance. The sensations which 
determine our perception of this position, as a sort of 
place of standing from which to perceive the relations of 
all other things, including the other members of the body 
itself, are in part very obscure. Experiment seems clearly 
to show that some of them are dependent upon the changes 
which go on in the pressure of the fluids within the semi- 
circular canals of the ear. 

Perception of Other Bodies by Touch. — In accounting for 
the perception of our own bodily members by touch we 



PERCEPTIONS OF TOUCH 197 

have already given the partial account of our touch-per- 
ception of other bodies. For whenever these members 
are presented to us by touch, our perception of them 
implies discrimination between two "sensation-masses," 
or series of sensation-complexes. These two correspond 
to (a) some member of the body touching', and (b) some 
other member of the body being touched. What is still 
necessary is some means for a discrimination which shall 
correspond to (a') some member of the body touching a 
thing and (V) some body of a thing, that is not my body, 
being touched. 

This further work of discrimination prepares the way 
for that achievement of a " cliremptive " character which 
sets the Self over against a world of external and extended 
Things. It is made possible by two classes of data: 
(1) Certain spatial series combine, with a marked accom- 
paniment of feeling vividly colored by pleasure-pains; 
but other series are relatively toneless in respect of pleas- 
ure-pains. (2) Certain spatial series are connected with 
our conation and conscious self-activity in a markedly 
different way from other spatial series. In general, the 
discrimination of our own body from other things is mainly 
dependent upon relations to our feeling and will. 

First Vague Perception of Other Bodies by Touch. — Un- 
doubtedly the infant first perceives external objects in the 
same vague way in which it perceives the different parts 
of its own body. In the perception of things it is sight 
which is, from the first, most influential. But the pro- 
cess of discriminating its own body, as known to touch, 
from other things is made possible, and even compelled, 
by its varied experience with either free and comparatively 
tone-less movements or resisted and feeling-full move- 
ments. Spatial series of sensation-complexes that are 
habitually accompanied by pleasurable or painful feeling 
are perceived as parts of its own body; other spatial 



198 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

series, not thus accompanied with pleasure-pains, are per- 
ceived as external objects. The infant feels its own body- 
in an interior, and pleasurable or painful way. It feels 
things more coolly and objectively. Spatial series of sen- 
sation-complexes that are dependently connected with 
volitions are perceived as movable members of the body; 
other series not thus dependent are perceived as bodies 
separate from our own and as opposed to the voluntary 
movements of our own body and of its members. 

For example, let A (the arm) on moving from X to Z develop a 
series of complex sensations = (s, s v s 2 , s 3 , etc.), (m, ?n v m 2 , m 3 , etc.), 
(j,j v J2,j 3 , etc.) (comp. p. 193). Now let this series be interrupted 
at a certain point (s 2 + m 2 + j 2 ), and another series tinged by intense 
feelings of effort or pain take its place. The new series consists of 
skin -sensations produced by striking against some thing (s x ), of mus- 
cles brought to arrest in a state of tension (m x ), and of joints com- 
pressed (j x ). Moreover, the young animal, when resisted, impulsively 
reacts with increased conation. This appearance of an abruptly 
changed " sensation-mass " in consciousness (s x + m x -f j x ), with its 
wholly altered accompaniment of feeling and conation, is an irresist- 
ible challenge to attention. Until further differentiated it may be 
described as a vague awareness of having the smooth flow of sense- 
experience interrupted in a manner which hurts, but over which I have 
no immediate control. 

The gripping of the infant by mother or nurse, the contact with 
its warm bath or cold bed, the movable bolus in its throat, the blows 
it gives itself with fist or leg (in which case it gets hurt in two places, 
with different degrees and qualities of painful sensations), — all such 
experiences furnish it with data for making the first vague distinctions 
between its own body and other things. So far as these distinctions, 
thus gained, are confined solely to terms of touch, they remain exceed- 
ingly vague and localized, " in the lump," as it were. 

Finer Perceptions of Bodies by Touch. — Such vague dif- 
ferentiation as has just been described is made clear and 
precise by the explorations of active touch. Here the 
hand and fingers are the chief organs of perception. 
Their use in running over the surfaces or along the edges 
of different bodies results in two varied but interpenetrat- 



PERCEPTIONS OF TOUCH 199 

ing series of tactual and muscular sensations. One of 
these series corresponds to the perception of touching and 
the other to the perception of something touched. If any 
object is simply pressed against the skin, the perception 
of its size and shape is relatively inaccurate. Weber, 
indeed, found that the circular form of a tube 1^ Parisian 
line in diameter could be distinguished on the tongue, 
while it required a size of 3| inches to make the same 
distinction on the skin of the abdomen. But the tongue, 
like the tips of the fingers, is not only most sensitive to 
differentiations in tactual sensations, but is also a cease- 
lessly movable organ of touch. How badly deceived it 
may be, however, when unable to call in the aid of sight, 
its estimate of the cavity left by a newly drawn tooth 
makes obvious. The blind rarely, or never, attempt to 
measure surfaces accurately otherwise than by running 
the finger along the boundary lines. It is the mobile organ 
which carefully delimits its object. 

Superficial Qualities of Bodies by Touch. — Bodies are 
known as "rough " or "smooth " to touch by the character 
of the sensation-complexes produced when moving some 
tactile organ (preferably the hand) over them, or when 
moving them over some organ. " Hardness " and " soft- 
ness " require that emphasis be given to tactual and mus- 
cular sensations by the moving member being resisted. 
Temperature sensations, too, have no small influence on 
the perceptions called forth by bodies in contact with the 
surfaces of our body. The weight of the same thing 
appears to -change with its temperature, although the 
results as bearing on the character of the change are 
somewhat conflicting. The smoothness of polished mar- 
ble is partly due to its appearing cold. Both pressure 
and temperature sensations combine in the perception of 
" moist " and " dry " surfaces, and in all cases where differ- 
ent degrees of "friction" and "sticktion" are involved. 



200 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Perception of Solidity by Touch. — There is abundant evi- 
dence to show that, were it not for resisted movements, no 
world of solid and real things could come into existence 
for the mind. The perception of the solidity of bodies, 
and of the various modifications of this general quality, 
therefore involves that peculiar emotional and conative 
coloring of the stream of consciousness which accompanies 
intense tactual, muscular, and joint sensations. In a word, 
we perceive other bodies as having weight, impenetrability, 
inertia, etc., by comparing together spatial series of sensation- 
complexes that are, chiefly, wide-spreading and strong tactual, 
muscular, and joint sensations, fused ivith intense feelings of 
effort and with other emotional modifications, due to superin- 
duced tension of the organs involved. Among these " organs 
involved " are the internal organs of circulation and of 
respiration, — especially in all cases of great exertion on 
our own part. 

Here again the influence of motor sensations and of 
mental images of motor sensations is most important. 
Memory-images of our past experiences when trying to 
move heavy bodies are the most influential factors in 
determining all new perceptions of this order. Thus 
bodies that move easier than we expected are perceived 
lighter than they are; bodies that make an unexpected 
resistance to our muscles are perceived heavier than they 
are. To these same principles we shall have occasion 
to refer when treating of illusions and hallucinations. 

On making the transition from touch to sight we seem 
to have come into a wholly new realm of knowledge. 
How meagre and fragmentary is the picture even of our 
own bodies as gained purely by the "feelings" which 
arise in skin, muscles, and joints! How relatively poor 
in content the perceptive cognition of the world of things 
which it is given to the blind to enjoy ! Yet the same 



PERCEPTIONS OP SIGHT 201 

mind, obeying the same laws, develops both classes of 
perceptions. 

Classes of Sensation-Complexes concerned in Vision. — Noth- 
ing can be more erroneous than to suppose that vision 
is a mysterious " copying-off " process which ready-made 
things somehow effect upon the brain or the retina of the 
eye. It is the rather a mental achievement, which involves 
the growth of discriminating intellectual life dealing with 
a complicated variety of "sensation-data," so to speak. 
Among such data are the following: (a) Sensation-com- 
plexes of light and color, of varying qualities and intensi- 
ties, due to simultaneous excitement of contiguous nervous 
elements of the retina; (6) sensation-complexes of tactual 
and muscular order, due to movement of the eye-ball; 
(c) other sensation-complexes due to accommodation of 
the eye for near distances. These combine with (d) men- 
tal images of past sensations of all three kinds ; and with 
(e) faint accompaniments of affective and conative con- 
sciousness. 

Moreover, the more developed forms of visual percep- 
tion involve other sensation-complexes that are localizable 
around the eyes, or in the neck and upper part of the trunk. 
Nor is the development of this form of perception with- 
out assistance from certain obscure sensations due to 
pressure and movement in the fluids of the semicircular 
canals and to the other means employed for orienting our 
bodies in space by touch (see p. 196 f.). For we see things 
in surrounding space according to our perception of the 
position of 'our own bodies, and especially of our own 
heads, with reference to the earth. 

Stages in Visual Perception. — Various stages may be dis- 
tinguished as marking the increasing complexity of that 
problem which is before us in the attempt to understand 
perception by the eye. These stages are not distinctly 
separable in the actual development of perceptive faculty. 



202 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

But they may be considered as affording different prob- 
lems, or different phases of the one problem, to the psy- 
chologist. Among them it will serve our purpose to 
mention the following four: (1) The conditions which 
determine the formation of an image on the retina with 
the eye at rest; (2) the single eye in motion and the 
influence of its movements upon visual sense-conscious- 
ness ; (3) the conditions furnished by the existence and 
relations of the two eyes exercising their functions in 
common; (4) the setting of the "field of vision" thus 
constructed into relations with other sense-experience, 
especially with that furnished by touch. 

Formation of the Image on the Retina. — The descriptions 
of visual perception given by physics and physiology make 

great account of the forma- 
tion of the image on the 
retina. How this takes 
place, the accompanying 
figure (No. 12) will show 
with sufficient detail for 

Fig. 12 

our purpose. Psychol- 
ogy, however, accepts the physics and physiology of 
the eye simply as suggesting the nature of the further 
and quite different analysis which it is itself compelled 
to undertake. Regarded as an instrument, this organ 
may be described as a water camera obscura, with a self- 
adjusting lens, and a screen composed of graded nervous 
elements that are sensitive to stimuli, especially in the form 
of photo- chemical changes. 

It is only when the series of modifications in sensation- 
consciousness produced by stimulating the different ele- 
ments of the retina is considered, that the psychological 
theory of vision is introduced. In the first attempts to 
construct such a theory two things must be kept in mind: 
(1) The light- and color-sensations called forth by stimu- 




PERCEPTIONS OF SIGHT 203 

lating the contiguous and successive parts of the retinal 
area possess those characteristics which have already been 
referred to as belonging to a so-called spatial series (see 
p. 184). They admit of easy, frequent, and rapid repeti- 
tion; they are adapted to fuse in a "sensation-mass "; and 
they are comparable and associable with one another. It 
is, therefore, proper to regard them as forming a system 
of "local signs." But (2), apparently, by themselves (if 
they could ever be experienced "by themselves," as they 
certainly cannot), they would never afford data for even 
the most rude, confused, and inchoate form of visual per- 
ception. Even the ill-defined "bigness " of the sensation- 
mass which arises in consciousness when we close the eyes 
and attend to what we see in that way, is a secondary and 
derived affair. 

Influence of Sensations of Motion upon Visual Perception. — 
We have already referred to the experiments of Holmgren, 
which showed that, on looking fixedly at very faint and 
fine points of light, their images seem to move constantly 
upward, if the eyes are somewhat elevated. The conclu- 
sion is in the line of all experience and all experiment. 
The most elementary space-intuition by the eye is pro- 
foundly influenced by the sensations connected with its 
motion. The eye — or, rather, the pair of eyes which are 
designed to be used as one organ — is constructed to move 
as the accompanying figures (Nos. 13 and 14) clearly 
show. 

As a matter of fact, from the first appearance in con- 
sciousness of sensations of light and color, the visual sen- 
sation-mass depends, for its character and for its locality, 
both upon local signs of the retina and also upon the local 
signs of motion. The eyes of the infant are more restless 
even than its arms and legs. Preyer and others have ob- 
served babies of only eleven days old plainly endeavoring to 
fixate an object which was at first seen indirectly. Impul- 



204 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



sive and less accurately coordinated movements exist from 
the first dawn of consciousness ; the very structure of the 
eye is such as to force a constant improvement in the early 
efforts at coordination. 

We conclude, then, that all visual perception, even the 
most primitive, requires the fusion of sensation-complexes of 
light and color, which are discernible as " local signs " of the 
retina, with other sensations and images of sensations, of a 
tactual and muscular order, which are due to movement of 
the eye. » 




Fig. 13. — Muscles of the Left Human 
Eye, seen from above : rs, rectus superior ; 
ril, rectus internus ; os, superior oblique, 
with its tendon t, running through the 
pulley u. 



Fig. 14. — Muscles of the Left Human 
Eye, seen from the outside : Ir, levator of 
the upper eyelid, which covers the rectus 
superior, rs ; rif, rectus inferior ; oo, in- 
ferior oblique ; re and os, as in Fig. 13. 



Construction of a Field of Vision. — In the construction 
of a "field " of visual perception, as in the construction of 
every "field " (compare p. 22 f.), discriminating conscious- 
ness is presupposed. In that experience which every adult 
has when, on opening his eyes, a number of objects that 
are external, extended, and related to one another in space, 
appear before him, thousands of acts of discrimination, 
through years of mental development, are presupposed. 
We propose now only to describe the data of sensation 
with which — to speak in a permissible figure of speech 
— this discriminating consciousness deals. These and 



PERCEPTIONS OF SIGHT 205 

the mental activity involved in vision will be better 
understood by noting, first of all, the obvious effect of a 
wandering "point of regard." 

The construction of the eye is such that the image of 
an object is distinct only when this image falls upon a 
small spot in the physiological centre of the retina (the 
fovea centralis). But we are born with an irresistible 
tendency to bring the image to fall upon this point and to 
fixate it there. The infant's first impulsive movements 
of the eye may be spoken of as experiments in learning 
how to do this. The point in the object whose image falls 
upon the physiological centre of the retina is called the 
"point of regard," or the "fixation-point." Both terms 
are suggestive of important truth; for it is the object 
whose image falls just there which we fixate with atten- 
tion, and most discriminatingly regard. And in that rapid 
but real activity of selective attention which is necessary 
to distinct visual perception, the eye is actually surveying 
the object with a wandering point of regard. It is the 
motor-sensations, and the sensations of position gained by 
its momentary pauses, which are needed in order to con- 
struct the visual field. Indeed, this fact of almost cease- 
less movement can be made obvious by any mechanism 
which reveals and magnifies the arc through which the 
movement takes place. 

The following conclusion is, then, reached: Every field 
of vision, and every object seen in every field, chiefly depends 
for its spatial qualities upon changes produced in the muscu- 
lar and tactual sensation-complexes by a moving '-'•point of 
regard." 

When, however, the distance of any object is much 
changed, in order to get a distinct image of it at the point 
of regard it is necessary that the convexity of the lenses 
of the eye should be changed. This change is effected, 
chiefly, by relaxing the tension on the front part of the 



206 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



lens and allowing it to bulge out with its own elasticity. 
No muscular strain is involved in allowing the lens to be 
kept flat by the pressure of its capsule ; but on approach- 
ing the object very near to the eye, the strain and the 
consequent fatigue required through the effort at accom- 
modation increases. These sensations of accommodation 
for near distance may be made more prominent in con- 
sciousness by directing attention to them; experiment 
shows that they have a considerable, though somewhat 
indefinite, value in our perception of the distances (espe- 
cially the relative distances) of visual objects. 

The accompanying figure (No. 15) gives a schematic representation 
of the apparatus of the eye for accommodation. As Professor James 

has said, "the feeling of 
accommodation has no 
very clear and fixed value." 
Yet Wundt, by looking 
with one eye at a black 
thread stretched against 
a white background, and 
through an aperture in a 
shield, claimed to find 
that relative positions 
could be distinguished 
with considerable accuracy ; but almost nothing could be told in this 
way about the absolute distance of the thread. In estimating the size 
of objects, too, the relaxation or increased tension of the muscle with 
which we accommodate may have an important bearing, Donders 
held that this is a chief reason why spectacles of moderate convexity 
magnify the object. The more recent investigations, however, seem 
to leave the value of the changes in accommodation still in doubt. 

One other important truth is connected with the con- 
struction of any field of vision by a single moving eye. 
All objects which lie so far out of the points of regard as 
to be seen in "indirect vision " are perceived out of their 
actual place. For example, the retinal images of things 
perceived, indirectly, as straight are bent; and in order 




Fig. 15. — Mechanism of accommodation: 
lens during accommodation with its anterior surface 
advanced ; B, the lens at rest ; G, position of the 
ciliary muscle ; D, the vitreous humor ; a, the ante- 
rior elastic lamina of cornea ; o, corneal substance 
proper ; b, posterior elastic lamina. 



PERCEPTIONS OF SIGHT 207 

that things thus situated may be seen as straight, their 
images must be bent. In general, it is only by a sort of 
mental transposition ivhich we have learned to make, and 
which is based upon our experience with moving- eyes as cor- 
rected and guided by associated images of past sensations, 
that the spatial relations of objects seen in indirect vision 
are perceived at all. 

The influence of the images associated with all the 
different excursions of the eye, with its wandering point 
of regard, appears more clearly as we consider — 

The Conditions influencing Binocular Vision. — In the great 
majority of cases it is not with a single moving eye, but 
with a pair of eyes which move synchronously and more 
or less in correspondence, that we perceive external and 
extended objects. The two eyes are much more emphati- 
cally one organ than are the two ears. So true is this that 
the silly question which used to serve as a stock puzzle for 
the psychologist — " How can one thing be seen, by means 
of two images, that differ materially, upon the two eyes?" 
— is answered by saying : " Perception of one solid thing, 
under all ordinary circumstances, is vision with two eyes." 

For the physics and physiology of binocular vision we 
must refer to books which treat the subject from these 
points of view. It is enough for our purpose to notice 
what modifications of sense-consciousness necessarily re- 
sult from the fact that we perceive visual objects with two 
moving eyes. " Two moving eyes " implies two sets of 
movements and of resulting sensation-complexes of motion 
and of position ; and two series of retinal sensations capable 
of apprehension as local signs. For each eye has its own 
point (and line and plane) of regard, and its own move- 
ments of rotation, torsion, and accommodation ; each eye 
is a complete optical instrument. The two eyes are 
not optical duplicates; yet they constitute one organ of 



208 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



A study of the optics and physiology of binocular vision 
emphasizes two sets of considerations valuable for the 
psychologist: (1) When both eyes are motionless, it is 
only under very limited conditions that the images formed 
on the two retinas are capable of exact, or of nearly exact, 
super-position ; (2) when both eyes are in movement, 
changes in the relations of their images are constantly 
taking place, and these changes correspond to all the 
positions reached along the arc of the motion of the 
eyes. 5 





a b 

Fig. 16. —The images of objects at a", Fig. 17. — If the image of the point b 

b", e", will fall on corresponding points of fall in one eye on 6, and in the other on 7, 
the retina — a and a', b and &', c and c'— the distance of the two images "seen will 
and will thus be seen single. equal that between 6 and 7. If the image 

of a fall on 5 and 5, it will be seen single ; 

but if the image of b fall on the left eye at 

6, and on the right eye at 4, it will appear 

double. 

We cannot enter at length into the theory of "double images," 
that "correspond" or fail to correspond, of the "coupling" and "un- 
coupling " of double images, of the calculation of the " horopter," etc. 
Some of the simpler points in the theory may be understood by study 
of the accompanying diagrams (Figs. 16 and 17). The influence of 
disturbing the customary correspondence of the two images on the two 
retinas may be felt in experience by very simple experiments. If we 
throw them out of their customary correspondence by pressing on the 
eye-ball, or by an act of will, the object becomes double and loses its 



PERCEPTIONS OF SIGHT 209 

solidity. If we hold a finger up against the sky and look steadily 
beyond the finger, it is now perceived as two transparent images of a 
finger and not as one "real" finger. The effect of moving the eyes, 
upon the sensation-mass seen with closed eyes, — to make it move up 
or down, to the right or to the left, or to locate any minute portion 
of this sensation-mass, — illustrates the same truth. 

Psychologically expressed, vision ivith tivo moving eyes 
means that two systems of spatial series of sensations — fus- 
ing, uncoupling, and fusing again — are being used by dis- 
criminating consciousness to determine the visual object as 
external and extended. Its size, shape, and distance (in- 
cluding especially its extension in the third dimension), 
and its spatial relations to other objects in the field of 
vision, are being perceived upon the basis of this double 
set of data. But here, as elsewhere, so skilful and rapid 
has the mind become in its seizure of the important data 
and in its relatively sure interpretation of them, that the 
details of the process have dropped out of consciousness. 
Here also, as everywhere, the extent of our scientific 
analysis is a poor and meagre substitute for the infinite 
variety of actual life. 

Stereoscopic Vision. — The visual perception of things as 
solid is ordinarily accomplished with two eyes. The 
character of the complex result, so far as the perception 
of solidity is purely visual, is chiefly determined by the 
relations which the two images sustain to each other. 
But in order to convert this truth in optics into a truth 
in psychology, all that has thus far been emphasized as to 
the nature of perception by the senses must be borne in 
mind. When such stereoscopic vision occurs with both 
eyes at rest, or with a single eye, the influence of fused 
and associated ideas derived from past experience of the 
eyes in motion, or from the field of touch, must be 
allowed additional weight. Indeed, there is every reason 
to hold that without such past experience, genuine stereo- 



210 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

scopic vision, or perception of solid objects with the eyes, 
could not take place. 

Stereoscopic vision is developed, principally on a basis of 
variation in those sensation-complexes, concomitant or closely 
successive, which are due to the stimulation of the different 
retinal areas of the two eyes, combined with variations in 
muscular and tactual sensations dice to their simultaneous 
movement. 

A railroad train lighted by an electric flash (and here there can 
be no question of simultaneous movement of the eyes) is still seen 
stereoscopically. One-eyed persons appear to have a certain amount 
of stereoscopic vision. The object seen by such a flash-light, however, 
really appears to most persons more like a photograph — suggestive of 
solidity — than as a real and solid visual thing. And, in general, our 
stereoscopy and perspective are so obscure and inaccurate with one 
eye as to support rather than to oppose the view that motor-sensations 
with two eyes are the chief, if not the necessary, aids to all our more 
distinct stereoscopic vision. 

The activity of the mind, and its dependence upon memory and 
imagination, in the construction of its perceptions of solid objects 
are amply illustrated by all experiments in stereoscopy. Investiga- 
tions into the wandering of the point of regard, and its accompani- 
ment of focusing and redistributing attention ("fixating"), are in 
evidence here. Where the two ocular images do not promptly unite 
in customary ways, so as to suggest, and fuse in, the right interpreta- 
tion, there is apt to be a conscious pause while we consider the mean- 
ing of such confusion in our sensation data. An effort of will," or an 
involuntary spring of imagination, often settles the confusion. Thus 
two systems of lines on a flat surface, when uncombined, suggest 
solidity only doubtfully; brought a little nearer together and they 
combine and become more directly endowed with spatial properties. 
The same two sets~of lines, when united stereoscopically, can be per- 
ceived either as an empty funnel or as a solid truncated cone. By 
uniting a right-eyed image of a white cube in outline, with a left-eyed 
image of a similar black cube, we are induced to perceive the trans- 
parent depths of a crystal, etc., etc. 

In all such cases it is not merely sensing, hut also ideating and dis- 
criminating consciousness, which accounts for the character of the perceived 
object. The fact that vision is normally stereoscopic, that double vision 



PERCEPTIONS OF SIGHT 211 

does not ordinarily take place, shows that all vision involves the selection 
and emphasis of certain sensation-elements, the relative disregard or exclu- 
sion of others, and the interpretation of the whole in terms of previous 
experience as determined by habit, practice, interest in the nature of the 
object, expectation, etc. 

Secondary Helps to Visual Perception. — What the prac- 
ticed eyes see when they open upon a landscape, or a city 
street, or upon the objects grouped in a room, is by no 
means to be accounted for completely by referring to data 
already discussed. Here the complex visual field consists 
of many objects, in front of or behind, above or below, 
each other, and grouped together in certain relations of 
contiguity, proximity, or distance, as extended in all 
three of the fundamental directions of space. It is this 
kind of seeing which makes all the objects parts of one 
picture and which gives sesthetical richness and variety to 
our visual perceptions. It is, however, dependent upon 
an " awareness " which is not so "immediate" as is the 
more primary knowledge of the eye. It involves more of 
judgment and imagination; the previous mental history 
of the perceiver enters into his vision in a more obvious 
and varied manner. 

Among the more important secondary helps to visual 
perception are the following: (1) The course of its limit- 
ing lines as determining the distance and form of the 
object, — particularly in the third dimension. Here the 
bottom lines are most important; and if they cannot be 
discerned or correctly judged, our perception of distance 
is apt to be confused. (2) Mathematical perspective, or 
the size of the angle of vision, is also of influence. In 
general, objects which cover a large visual angle are per- 
ceived large. But in general, also, the perceived size of 
objects does not diminish nearly as rapidly as do their 
visual angles. Thus Martius found that if you suspend 
a rod of 20 cm. in length, at a distance of 50 cm., and 



212 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

compare with this a rod of the same length at a distance 
of 2.50 m., the latter will appear about 0.62-1.62 cm. 
longer than it should; under similar conditions the fur- 
ther rod, when the length of both is 100 cm., will appear 
as much as 7.75-9.25 cm. longer than it should. Were 
this rule not observed, we could not perceive square 
or quadrilateral things as having their sides parallel. 
(3) Atmosphere and (4) the size and direction of the 
shadows are of great influence. Painters deceive us 
pleasantly in this way into perceiving the background of 
mountains in their pictures as distant and yet large ; and 
Ave deceive ourselves, sometimes unpleasantly, in the 
reverse way, when in Colorado we see the distant moun- 
tains as so very near. Intaglios can be converted into 
medallions or bas-reliefs by having their shadows reversed. 
The objects in the landscape look far off when the shadows 
begin to lengthen, etc. (5) But environment and com- 
parison tell mightily upon the character of our visual 
perceptions. We cannot help seeing the actor of ordinary 
size as a giant when he covers so much of the distant 
mountain on the scene ; but he is perceived as dwarfing 
suddenly when he advances to the front of the stage. 

Effect of Imagination on Visual Perception. — That image- 
making enters into all our sense-perceptions, and even 
constitutes a part of their "immediate awareness," has 
alread}^ been explained. It will be made even clearer 
when the theory of illusions and hallucinations is touched 
upon. But the more remote effect of what we call imagi- 
nation is most prominent in even our ordinary perceptions 
of sight. The truth is that the genuine "sensation-stuff " 
of these perceptions is customarily very slight and sche- 
matic. A few fragments of lines and patches of color are 
really seen ; and lo ! we perceive a tree, a man, a bird, or 
what not. Ordinary visual perception is a sort of " touch- 
and-go " affair. In it the mind seizes upon a suggestion 



PERCEPTIONS OF SIGHT 213 

from the conscious sensations and immediately constructs 
a complete picture. What really, to actual sight alone, 
is that man who is walking a quarter of a mile distant? 
Nothing more than a little blotch of color bobbing up and 
down in front of a green or otherwise colored background. 
And yet I affirm truly : I perceive — am " immediately 
aware " — of a man. 

Effect of Feeling on Visual Perception. — That people ex- 
perience what they expect, or what they want to have 
occur, is commonly enough said. But the influence of 
feeling upon all our perceptions, and especially upon the 
most complicated and sensitive of them all, is something 
more than indirect. We hear the carriage that is to con- 
vey our friend to the station, a full half-dozen times before 
it actually arrives. And in spite of the relatively "cool " 
nature of vision, feelings of dread or of gladsome expec- 
tation, of longing or of surprise, of anger or of love, 
often determine what mental images shall fuse with, and 
control the interpretation of, the visual "mass " or "series " 
of sensation-complexes. 

Influence of Conation on Visual Perception. — From wish, 
or want, to will, is but a single step. Conative impulse 
and selective attention greatly influence what we see. 
By an act of will the microscopist can exclude the influ- 
ence of images formed upon the retina of the eye which is 
not looking into the instrument. The trained observer, 
under certain circumstances, can decide whether he will 
or will not perceive the double images. If a card is 
prepared with two right-hand images of blue and two 
left-hand images of red, and then the four images are 
stereoscopically united, in some cases the volition of the 
observer determines which of these two colors shall be 
perceived, or whether the two shall mix in a binocular 
image of reddish-blue or of violet. 

The fixation and control of the point of regard, and all 



214 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

that follows from this in the use of our eyes, stands for 
the element of will in all our visual perception. 

Different Theories of Sense-Perception with the Eyes. — 

As might well be expected, the views of Nativist and 
Empiricist (see p. 184 f.) come into fiercest and most deter- 
mined conflict over the case of the eye. But it is in this 
case that what has already been said of these views proves 
most obviously true. The prevalent theory in Great 
Britain since Berkeley has maintained the impossibility 
of becoming " immediately aware " of the third dimension 
of bodies by the use of the eyes alone ; according to its 
conclusions, stereoscopic vision implies the translation 
of all visual signs of the third dimension into terms of 
touch. This is obviously false. For it has been shown 
that the organ of vision possesses, and habitually uses, a 
complete apparatus for becoming " immediately aware " of 
the solidity of external bodies, and of their relative dis- 
tances. This apparatus consists, however, of the tivo eyes 
in motion, with the "series " and "masses " of tactual and 
muscular sensations, and of light and color sensations 
("local signs" of the retina), which are thus evoked. 
When, then, the Berkeleyan hypothesis assumes that the 
perception of the first and second dimensions of bodies is 
possible without movement of the eyes, it seems to fall 
into equal error upon the opposite side. 

On the contrary, the attempt has recently been made by 
a few distinguished authorities to establish a primordial 
"bigness " for light and color sensations as such, and to 
minimize or completely dispense with, the aid of motor 
activity in the organ. This view is equally obviously 
false. The most primary visual bigness is the construct 
of discriminating consciousness, based upon data of expe- 
rience acquired with moving eyes. 

The detailed discussion of the experimental data would be out of 
place in a brief treatise like the present. In the words of a recent 



PERCEPTIONS OF SIGHT 215 

writer upon one branch of the subject (Dr. Judd), " All of the results 
from these various experiments furnish ground for accepting the asso- 
ciation and motor-sensation theory of visual space, rather than the 
contrary. . . . The sense-data presented in every case are interpreted 
in accordance with experience." The striking experiments of Pro- 
fessor Stratton in producing "vision without inversion of the retinal 
image" are equally unfavorable to those theories which make visual 
perception either a purely retinal, or a purely central, affair ; and also 
to those which claim that visual directions are determined by purely 
muscular evidence. On the other hand, they favor the view that 
fusion and association of both muscular and retinal sensations deter- 
mine a complicated system of " local signs " whose interpretation is 
dependent upon ideas gained by the entire development of our sense- 
experience. 

Uniting and Harmonizing the Fields of Touch and of Sight. 
— The truth just established has an important bearing 
upon the union of the two great classes of perceptions of 
external and extended objects. The world of things is a 
world seen and felt, to which we attribute the production 
of sounds, tastes, and smells, as well as of many of our 
various pains and pleasures. In the full-orbed perception 
of things by the senses it is necessary, then, that sight 
and touch should unite and harmonize. Considered origi- 
nally and by themselves, sensation-complexes of touch are 
no more like sensation-complexes of sight, than are either 
of these like sensations of taste or of smell. Nor are 
the various kinds of sensations which come by touch, such 
as those of pressure and temperature, similar in quality. 
But amongst sensation-complexes which are always expe- 
rienced together, such a fusion early takes place as makes 
it difficult 'to disentangle them even by the most subtle 
and persistent analysis. This is true of temperature and 
pressure as entering into perceptions of touch. It is more 
obviously true of the motor sensations of the eye and sen- 
sations of light and color as entering into perceptions of 
sight. 

Between perceptions of sight and perceptions of touch 



216 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

in general a less complete union and harmony is early 
effected. The constant use of hand and eye together by 
the infant secures the beginnings of the unifying process. 
What it handles, and so knows with active touch, that it 
examines also by sight. Thus the two classes of percepts 
become closely associated. The "association" rarely or 
never amounts to that closer and more inseparable kind 
of union which we have spoken of as a "fusion " of sensa- 
tions and ideas. It is perhaps more consonant with expe- 
rience, then, to say that one class of perceptions suggests 
the other. For example, visual volume " suggests " tactual 
solidity, etc. But by this it must not be understood that 
the suggestive process itself comes into consciousness. 

For reasons which slight reflection makes obvious, touch 
and sight, respectively, either take the lead or are led, as 
best accords with the practical ends of perception. In the 
perception of distant objects sight is necessarily most 
prominent. Yet the blind have their kind of perception 
of such objects; and it is in terms, chiefly, of muscular 
sensations and memory-images of fatigue. As one of them 
has recently testified: "I consider infinity going away 
just as I would swim away from the land." Even for all 
of us the perceptive consciousness of a mountain we are 
about to climb, of a stone we intend to throw, of a wall 
we expect to jump, although mainly visual, is tinged with 
faint tactual, muscular, and joint sensations, with revived 
images of such kinds of sensation, and with feelings of 
effort and strain. Per contra, even when we are feeling 
our way in the dark, it is the memory-images of past visual 
experiences which blend with our perceptions of touch 
and, in many cases, even take the lead of them. 

In general, the percept of anything which is being 
touched, or moved by exertion of the muscles, or which 
is felt in contact with the body, is modified by suggested 
factors of visual perceptions, of ideas and thoughts as to 



ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS 217 

how that particular thing looks. On the other hand, the 
purest visual perceptions of distant or of strikingly colored 
objects are usually tinged with suggestions of how it 
would feel to go to them ; or of how they would feel, if 
only we could examine them in contact with our bodies. 

Thus all perception, as a seemingly " immediate aware- 
ness " of external and extended objects, in the case of 
persons that have used both touch and sight, implies the 
unifying and harmonizing of the two kinds of sense- 
experience. In the perception of the masses of our own 
bodies, whether at rest or in motion, and in the perception 
of the solidity, impenetrability, weight, inertia, etc., of 
other bodies, touch takes the lead; but suggestions of sight 
are blended, in subordination to the data furnished by skin, 
muscles, and joints. In the perception of the shape, size, 
and spatial relations, of distant bodies, the reverse is true. 
Sight leads, and suggestions of touch are subordinated. 
In all cases, the practical ends of perception largely deter- 
mine ivhich spatial sense shall lead, and how the unifying 
and harmonizing process of construing the object shall take 
place. 

Theory of Illusions and Hallucinations of Sense 

All that has thus far been said about normal sense-per- 
ception, and much which will be said about memory, 
imagination, and reasoning, is illustrated and enforced by 
a study of illusions and hallucinations. 

Illusions and Hallucinations in Normal Perception. — It 
was formerly customary to claim that our senses never 
deceive us ; only our judgments, it was held, can go astray. 
Even a recent writer (James) has said that such fallacy is 
not "of the senses proper." It will subsequently appear 
— indeed, in our discussion of attention, discrimination, 
and the very nature of perception, it has appeared — that 



218 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

neither truth nor error can be claimed for "the senses 
proper." Only judgment can be true or false. But as to 
sense-perception in general, the saying of Lotze is more 
correct : " The whole of our apprehension of the world is 
one great and prolonged deception." 

It is well understood by students of pathology that 
illusions and hallucinations of all the different senses 
occur in cases of insanity and other diseased conditions. 
Investigators within the realms of so-called "psychic 
phenomena " well know the influence of suggestion, in 
its infinitely varied forms, to produce the "immediate 
awareness " of all kinds of illusory objects. This influ- 
ence is made especially striking in experiments with 
hypnotic subjects. What has not been so universally 
recognized is this : In the normal waking life of the average 
man a large but indefinite amount of illusion and hallucina- 
tion enters into all his sense-perceptions. If we make the 
customary distinction and consider "illusions" as par- 
tially false interpretations of really existing sensory data 
(and so as having at least a partial peripheral and exter- 
nal origin), and "hallucinations" as purely central and 
imaginary constructs, we must say that both belong to the 
average man's so-called "normal sense-experience." 

The presence of illusory elements — and often in a 
dominating way — within all kinds of normal perceptions 
is precisely what our theory of perception compels us to 
expect. For all perception is interpretation; and from 
partial or mistaken interpretation all degrees and kinds of 
illusions and hallucinations result. Ordinary experience 
amply confirms what correct theory suggests. Experiment 
also demonstrates the presence of measurable illusions and 
hallucinations in the normal life of perception by the 
senses. Such a series of experiments recently conducted 
(by Dr. Seashore ; see " Studies from the Yale Psychologi- 
cal Laboratory," 1895) led the experimenter to the follow T - 



ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS 219 

ing conclusions : " What we call normal perception in- 
volves many illusory influences — not only those of phys- 
ical and physiological origin, but even more so those due 
to the functions of ideation, memory, and imagination." 

Illusions of Taste, Smell, and Hearing. — It is well known 
that the hypnotic subject can be made, purely by sugges- 
tion, to exhibit all the signs of having nauseating and dis- 
gusting, or delightful and invigorating, tastes and smells. 
Told that the glass of pure water, from which she is drink- 
ing, is ink, she can scarcely refrain from vomiting ; but 
told that it is lemonade or wine, she not simply simu- 
lates, but actually feels, the expected refreshment or 
invigoration. Suppose that the experimenter, in deter- 
mining "the threshold" of sensations of sweetness, having 
found that a ^ per cent, or 1 per cent, solution is detected 
on first trial, wishes to deceive the normal subject. He 
can, almost without exception, make him perceive the 
sugar on tasting pure water the requisite number of times 
with the appropriate suggestions. The same experiment 
succeeds with the smell of oil of cloves instead of the 
taste of sugar. The influence of suggestion, and the amount 
of the illusory factor, in the cases of the hypnotic subject and 
of normal perception, is only a matter of degrees. 

How people imagine all manner of sounds and of voices 
addressed to them, that have no accurately corresponding 
external stimulus, is too well known to need detailed 
illustration. The whole account of our dream-life, so far 
as it can be given in terms of audition, depends upon the 
influence of similar illusory and hallucinatory factors. 
The mother who hears her dead child calling to her may 
be neither more nor less truly projecting and localizing 
and interpreting, in an ideal way, certain sense-modifica- 
tions of her consciousness, than are you and I when we 
converse with one another. The experiments already 
noticed claim to have established these two points : — 



220 DESCEIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

" 1. Hallucinations of sound distinctly above the thresh- 
old can be produced experimentally in normal life by 
leading the observer to concentrate expectant attention 
upon the desired result. 

"2. Experiments to determine the threshold of sound 
cannot be continued through a series of repeated trials, 
without being vitiated by the suggestion due to the 
accumulating associations. " 

Illusions of Touch. — The effect upon perception of cross- 
ing two fingers and feeling some small object between 
them was remarked as long ago as Aristotle. Only the 
theory of perception which recognizes it as an activity of 
discriminating consciousness in interpreting local signs 
that have become fused and associated into a fixed spatial 
system, accounts for even this simple experiment. But 
in view of this theory, the question becomes: Why should 
not this illusion take place ? The illusion is, under the 
circumstances, the normal perception; it is the external 
relations of the different parts of the thing to the different 
parts of the organ which are abnormal. The mind does 
its duty according to its best lights. And if it were not 
subject to the illusion, it would not be perceiving in 
accordance with its best lights. But let the eye look and 
see how the organ and the object are related in space. 
Then it will correct the touch-illusion by the visual per- 
ception. Were the hand customarily to act in touch, with 
these two fingers crossed, then a new harmony between 
sight and touch would be established. 

In all our perceptions of the weights of bodies which 
we are allowed to lift, the possible element of hallucina- 
tion or illusion is large. As Dr. Scripture has said: To 
our sense-perception a pound of lead is heavier than a 
pound of feathers. Here, however, we are dealing with 
the illusory influence of one sense upon the perceptions of 
another sense. For if we do not perceive, or ideate, the 



ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS 221 

pound of feathers in terms of sight, then it ceases to be 
lighter than the pound of lead. Experiment also shows 
that the illusory effect of the suggested idea often persists 
even when clear knowledge is obtained as to its presence 
and deceiving effect. Though we know that the smaller 
of two otherwise similar cylinders weighs no more than 
the larger, we cannot perceive them, when lifted between 
finger and thumb in plain sight, to have the same weight. 
The illusion persists, so strong are the established asso- 
ciations, although with diminished effect. 

Illusions and Hallucinations of Sight. — Illustrations of 
the truth that the explanation of all cases of incorrect 
interpretation of the local signs (illusions or hallucina- 
tions) is to be found in the principles of normal percep- 
tion are most frequent and striking in the case of sight. 
This is because of the very nature of visual perception. 
Its systems of local signs are most complex and subtilely 
variable, and yet most intimately fused and associated. 
The resulting perceptions are, of all others, the most 
complicated and yet firmly established. We are always 
attentively engaged in perceiving or ideating visual 
objects, as a necessary means to the attainment of our 
practical ends. 

When an attempt is made to explain psychologically 
the illusions and hallucinations of sight, whether ordinary 
or unusual, we are often met by the fact that several 
principles of normal vision are needed for a complete 
explanation of some particular case. Hence the same 
sensation-data may result in different illusions in the 
perception of different individuals. On the contrary, 
the explanation of similar illusions may be different in 
the cases of different individuals. It is these considera- 
tions which make it so difficult to mass all the experi- 
mental data in defence of any one law of visual errors of 
perception. The following pages of illustrations and the 



222 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



accompanying text will show some of the principal appli- 
cations of the general theory. The theory may now be 
re-stated in this figurative way : It is the acquired fidelity 
of consciousness to fact and to law which produces our illu- 
sions and hallucinations ; for the object is always a mental 
construction, a solution by discriminating and interpretative 
consciousness of a problem proposed in terms of sensations 
and of representative images. 

1. Some visual illusions are explained by the principle of "con- 
flict " of colors or of lines and contours. If we place two differently- 
colored figures on a card and then unite them with a stereoscope, one 
of them will be seen to "prevail" over the other (sometimes according 
to the will of the observer) ; or else the two may fuse in a third color 
different from both. With this strife of colors a strife of lines or 
of contours may be combined. If, for example, two series of outlines, 
one white and one black, be stereoscopically seen, we have the illu- 
sion of a transparent solid. 





Again, if two equal squares, as S and S' in Fig. 18, are filled in 
with cross lines running in opposite directions, and are then viewed 
through a stereoscope, over some of the ai-eas one set of lines will 
prevail, and over other areas the other set of lines ; in still other areas 
either a confused blur or a network composed of both sets of lines 
will indicate the result of an attempt to blend the two images. 

2. Other visual illusions arise from misinterpreting the import of a 
felt intensity of muscular effort. Under this law may probably be 
brought the fact that vertical distances are usually perceived as larger 
than equal horizontal distances ; and an exact square appears higher 
than its breadth. By inverting an g or g, the actual difference of the 
two parts appears greatly magnified. Many visual illusions of exag- 
geration are due to the muscles of the eye being tired or lamed. 
And, in general, an increased amount of sensation and of conative 
feeling in the perceptive process produces an illusory extension in the 
magnitude of the visual object. 



ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS 



223 



Frequently combined with this effect is the working of an allied 
principle. In measuring any space with the eye, if the space is 
broken up with points or lines, or is filled in with a number of objects, 



ABC 

Fig. 19 

there is a slight tendency to pause at each interruption of the process 
of measuring; and this tendency requires work in order to overcome 
it. Hence squares intersected with lines (see Fig. 19) appear en- 
larged in the direction in which they are 
repeatedly intersected ; and the same thing 
is true of angles (as in Fig. 20). 

3. The tendency to prolong the motor 

activity in the direction in which it has 

already been continuously exercised, in con- FlG- 20 

nection with the preceding principle, accounts for other visual illusions. 
In running the eye along a line or a surface, a sudden check to its 
movement, or an encitement to move in the reverse direction, tends to 





shorten the apparent magnitude; but an encitement to continue the 
movement in nearly the same direction increases the apparent magni- 
tude. This is the principal reason why, in Fig. 21, of the equal lines 
A, B, C, and D, the line B appears longer than A ; but C appears 
longer than B; while it is quite impossible to persuade ourselves that 
D is not much longer than A. 

[The foregoing principle can be illustrated experimentally by 
preparing an "illusion board" after the pattern of the following 
diagram (invented by Heymans ; for a full description see Scripture, 



224 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



" The New Psychology," p. 400), in which, by shoving in and out one 
portion of the board, the accuracy of our measurement and the 
amount of illusion can be determined (see Fig. 22). Schoolboys 
unwittingly illustrate principles 2 and 3 when they try the trick of 
placing three cents along a line so that the distance between the outer 
rims of A and B shall equal the distance between the inner rims of 
B and C. In the figure on the next page (No. 23), the distances are, 
but by no means seem to be, exactly equal. Doubtless also, the ten- 
dency to locate any symmetrical small body about its centre, and 
thus to measure the distances between A and B, and between B and 
C, by their centres rather than by the rims, enhances this illusion. 




4. Many visual illusions depend upon the principle of suggested 
contrast with the environment. The more contracted the suggested en- 
vironment of the space-dimension in question, the smaller will the 
object appear; and vice versa. Here the illusion is brought about by 
mistaken application of a standard. Thus also the sides of a triangle 
seem smaller than the equal sides of a square ; the sides of a square 
than the equal sides of a pentagon, etc. This principle is combined 
with the others in some of the instances already given. 

5. Somewhat similar are the illusions which arise when we set dis- 
tant objects at a mistake?! distance, and then give an illusory magnitude to 
them; or when we give them a mistaken magnitude and, in conse- 
quence, perceive them at an illusory distance. Thus the perceived 
size of the full moon varies from that of an orange to a large cart 
wheel, and its distance from "away up " in the sky to "just behind" 




ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS 225 

the trees in the next field. Other more complicated ideas and doubt- 
ful but conscious estimates enter, however, into such illusions of sight. 

6. Under certain circumstances the more creative 
activity of the image-making faculty, taking its start 
from meagre sensation-data and following the prin- 
ciple of suggestion, results in astonishing illusions 
and hallucinations. Thus Binet tells of a hypnotic 
patient who, having the suggested hallucination of 
a portrait on a sheet of paper on which a rude figure 
of a hat had been drawn, perceived the suggested 
portrait wearing the actual hat. The visual sensa- 
tion-stuff which suggests our elaborate dreams of 
seeing things is customarily equally meagre. Similar 
illusions enter into all our normal perceptions. It 
has already been repeatedly shown how in all visual 
perception, unless it is deliberately minute and care- 
ful, the few sensory-motor data serve as suggestions 
which are filled in with a rich content of revived 
images. No wonder, then, that the result is so often 
illusory. 

Education of the Senses in Perception. — Our 
rather long study of the development of 
sense-perception may well end by stating 
two principles which concern the educative 
value of the senses: (1) The development 
of perception by the senses is mental devel- 
opment; and the education of the senses in 
perception is, therefore, education of the 
entire mind. (2) We have no other way 
of arriving at an assumed knowledge of 
things than to take our start with the 
careful training of the senses in perception. This is the 
way to separate between truths of fact and the manifold 
illusions and hallucinations that mix with all our sense- 
perceptions. A guilty conscience and a disordered func- 
tion of the organism explain Macbeth's vision, which is but 

" A dagger of the mind, a false creation, 
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain," 




226 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Still, "knowledge of things " is, as we shall see later on, 
by no means wholly a matter of sense-perception. 

[The pupil should study some book giving the " physiology of the 
senses," such as that by M'Kendrick and Snodgrass, or the author's 
Outlines of Physiological Psychology. Of the larger psychologies 
the treatment of the subject by James : Principles, II, pp. 76-324, 
is far the best. This may be supplemented by Bain: The Senses 
and the Intellect, pp. 59-100, 159-190, 360-448; Scripture: The 
New Psychology, Part IV, "Space"; and Sully: The Human Mind, 
I, pp. 204-235. The monographs on the subject are almost innu- 
merable ; among them may be noticed, Max Dessoir : Ueber d. Haut- 
sinn; Fere: Sensation et Mo uvement; Stumpf: Raumvorstellung; T. 
K. Abbott : Sight and Touch ; Le Conte : Sight. Edmund Parish's 
book on Illusions and Hallucinations may be consulted with profit. 
This subject may be experimentally studied by " Bradley's Pseudop- 
tics " — the apparatus prepared under the direction of Professor Miin- 
sterberg. The advanced student will, of course, resort to the more 
elaborate treatises of Wundt, Helmholtz, Hering, and others.] 



CHAPTER X 

MEMORY 

The processes of ideation, by fusion and association 
under the principle of contiguity (see chapter VII), lay 
the basis for the development of the three so-called " fac- 
ulties " of Memory, Imagination, and Reasoning. These 
faculties do not, like perception, seem to make us " imme- 
diately aware " of things, of their qualities and their rela- 
tions. In memory we have ideas of things once perceived; 
in imagination we make useful or fanciful combinations 
of these ideas ; and in reasoning we rearrange these ideas 
so as to increase our knowledge about things, ^-pres- 
entation is, then, dominant in all such complex mental 
processes. In all three forms of representative faculty 
objects, once immediately known, are presented to con- 
sciousness agai?i, in the form of ideas. 

On the other hand, attentive and discriminating con- 
sciousness, self-selecting and self-directed, in the pursuit 
of practical ends, is implied in all memory, imagination, 
and reasoning. For these faculties are not mere result- 
ants of increased complexity in the processes of ideation. 
And the development of mental life along these cognate 
lines of activity depends upon something more than upon 
a bare increase of complexity in such processes. This is 
especially true of imagination and of reasoning, whose 
essential character seems to consist in giving us some- 
thing new, something beyond that of which we can be- 
come " immediately aware " by sense-perception. 

Of these three forms of the development of mental life, 
we consider first — 

227 



228 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

The Nature of Memory. — When we remember, some past 
experience of our own reappears in consciousness in the 
form of ideas. But the following particulars are illus- 
trated by every complete act of memory : (1) It is itself 
an event in the stream of consciousness. It is my activity, 
or state, of remembering ; and, therefore, I immediately 
know, " am aware " of, " feel sure " of, — with more or less 
clear and strong conviction — the truth of what I thus 
mentally represent. Memory is thus a species of know- 
ledge. (2) The actual event, which I represent in con- 
sciousness, is known as belonging to time now past. The 
event actually was ■ — a year, an hour, a moment, ago. 
Memory implies, then, some development of "time-con- 
sciousness." (3) The actual event, like my present 
remembrance of it, was an experience of mine. I can- 
not remember another's experiences, unless I have already 
known what those experiences were, and have made them 
my own. Memory implies, then, some development of 
self-consciousness. (4) The memory of the event, how- 
ever, must distinguish itself from the actual event remem- 
bered. It is this peculiarity of the memory-act or process 
of consciousness, which makes it to be called representa- 
tive ; and which compels us to speak of its introduction 
into the stream of consciousness as a recall, recollection, 
reminiscence, etc. Memories are ideas, not perceptions of, 
or thoughts about, things. (5) Inasmuch, finally, as we 
habitually remember some one event rather than some 
other, and remember this event in connection with a con- 
sciously allied perception, or as a member of a recogniza- 
bly appropriate train of ideas and thoughts, we are led to 
investigate the "laws of memory." 

Stages of Memory. — It has been customary to speak of 
three stages of memory, — - retention, reproduction, recog- 
nition. Properly speaking, these so-called stages do not 
all admit of a truly psychological treatment. For reten- 



MEMORY AS RETENTION 229 

tion and reproduction, since the former takes place 
entirely, and the latter partially, outside the stream of 
consciousness, belong to the conditions of memory, rather 
than to the psychosis itself. They are not, then, properly 
speaking, " stages " of psychical memory. So far as repro- 
duction takes place in consciousness, it is itself nothing 
but the actual process of remembering, whether con- 
ducted in an automatic or in a more or less consciously 
purposeful way. The simple and fundamental fact is: 
I remember ; — that is, a modification of my present con- 
scious mental life appears, ivhich includes the conviction 
that it represents some past event in the same mental life. 
But in order to understand this fact, we may consider it 
from three points of view : it implies retention ; it implies 
reproduction ; and it is a true recognition, or " knowing 
over again." 

Memory as Retention. — The word retention cannot be 
applied to any genuine psychical act or process whatever. 
The mind may not be conceived of as a thing which can 
retain, or hold, as under lock and key, its store of acqui- 
sitions. Neither is it like a lump of wax, or of putty, 
which keeps the impressions made upon it by contact with 
various things. And, indeed, essentially the same thing 
is true of the brain. The physiological principle of " dy- 
namical associations " among the elements of the nervous 
system, and the cognate psychical principles of habit, and 
of the renewal of the ideation-processes under the laws 
of fusion and association, are the preconditions explana- 
tory of the phenomena of memory, regarded as retention. 
As distinguished from these laws of reproduction, ivhich are 
themselves to be regarded as necessary conditions of recogni- 
tive memory, there is no such thing known to scientific psy- 
chology as "retention in memory.'''' 

What is popularly called the " retentive power " of memory — the 
figure of speech which seems to teach that memory-images are 



230 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

"stored" away — has been conceived of in two ways, physiological 
and psychological. Thus Plato and St. Augustine regarded the ideas 
as continuing to exist somehow in the mind. And even Bouillier 
declares : " No idea, at least of those which memory may recall, ever 
leaves the mind entirely." Truer to science is the poet Longfellow : 
" Themselves will fade, 

But not their memory, 

And memory has the power 

To recreate them from the dust." 

Equally unsatisfactory with Plato is the modern physiological theory 
which thinks to explain recognitive memory by referring to " scars," 
as it were, or " polarized nerve-cells," or " association-tracts " in the 
brain, with the added phenomenon of consciousness. 

Physiological Conditions of Retentive Memory. — Little need 
be added on this subject to what has already been said 
(p. 128 f.). The special conditions of an act of memory, 
regarded as implying retention, are to be found (1) in the 
condition of the centres and association-tracts of the 
brain where the original presentation occurs, and also 
(2) in the state of the same centres and tracts when repro- 
duction takes place. Soundness of brain-tissue and a 
proper supply of well-oxygenated blood are most impor- 
tant in fulfilling these conditions. No other so-called 
faculty suffers more from organic or functional disturb- 
ances of the brain than does memory. 

This general dependence of retentive memory upon the soundness 
and the healthy functioning of those centres and association-tracts of 
the brain which were concerned in the remembered original, is illus- 
trated in many ways. It is found that persons who become blind 
before the age of from five to seven years, do not ordinarily retain 
visual images so as to dream or to think in terms of them, in after 
life. This is because the " dynamical associations " are not firmly 
established earlier than this age. Those who are " growing old " 
mentally, often begin first to complain of loss of memory. Any im- 
pairment of tissue or weakness of function, in any of the brain-centres, 
is followed most promptly by disturbance of this form of mental life. 
Astonishing differentiations of the loss of memory are dependent, 
although in ways whose details cannot be traced, upon the same 



MEMORY AS RETENTION 231 

physiological conditions. Thus after fevers, much of one kind of 
knowledge may be lost, while another kind is retained. Forbes 
Winslow even tells of a man who, on recovery from an illness, had 
forgotten the letter F. In general, as says Kussmaul, "the more 
concrete the idea, the more readily the word to designate it is forgot- 
ten when memory fails." 

Psychical Conditions of Retentive Memory. — What we 
remember at all, and what we remember best, depends 
chiefly upon the relations which attentive and discrimi- 
nating consciousness sustains to the processes involved 
both in the original perception and in the reproduction. 
Among such relations the following are important: 
(1) The vividness of the impression, and its attraction to 
itself of " interest," in the first instance ; (2) the sympa- 
thy with our permanent disposition or temporary mood at 
the time of acquisition ; (3) the thoroughness with which 
the memory is wrought, by repetition, into the texture of 
our mental life ; (4) the favoring or unfavorable direction 
of our practical ends ; (5) the amount of voluntary effort 
given to " fixing the thing in mind " or " committing it to 
memory" ; (6) the firmness of the logical connections be- 
tween the particular event and our established principles 
of judgment or habits of conduct. Events that stand well 
in these and similar ways as related to our entire mental life 
are likeliest to survive the obliterative influence of time. 
They constitute the permanent retentions of memory. 

In spite, however, of these undoubted psychical laws which control 
memory considered as retention, there are not a few phenomena which 
appear not to conform to them. On the one hand, some things which 
we have taken most pains to commit to memory, have been most 
interested in, most sympathetic with, and which our pursuit of prac- 
tical ends most binds us to remember, slip provokingly, beyond all 
recall, from our mental grasp. On the other hand, the train of con- 
sciousness is not infrequently seen to be loaded with worthless, gro- 
tesque, and offensive rubbish, whose existence and recurrence in the 
stream of consciousness seems to defy all laws. Clinging "parasites" 
of memory, they seem to be ; and how frequently do they possess the 



232 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

vitality to choke the trees which we most wish to cultivate ! Again 
some trifling fact springs, unbidden, into full consciousness out of the 
concealed depths of a forgotten past. Thus Delbceuf tells how he 
dreamed of asplenium ruta muralis, although he was no botanist and 
did not know that such a plant existed ; only subsequently he discov- 
ered that two years previous to the dream his eye had rested thought- 
lessly, for an instant, on this collection of, to him, meaningless words. 

There is a kind of retention in memory which psychologists have 
neglected, but to which we shall give the title "metamorphosed," — 
a sort of memory-image kept in mind in a form of substitution. Thus 
when one has failed to execute a commission, or to do an errand, or 
when one has left behind one's book or one's umbrella, a sort of vague 
and guilty uneasiness gives a peculiar shading to the stream of con- 
sciousness. This is chiefly due to the fact that this stream of conscious- 
ness does not correspond to the idea previously formed of what it 
would be. Such an idea lingers in the "fringes " of consciousness as 
an obscure memory-image of a certain place to be visited, or thing to 
be done, or as a vaguely felt system of pressure and other sensations 
due to the weight we were carrying, etc. Apparently such " meta- 
morphosed " memory, or substitution of obscure allied feelings and 
images for clearly recognized and definite images of another kind, 
explains many of the phenomena of hypnotic memory; and perhaps 
also certain "revelations" of clairvoyants, "trance-mediums," and the 
like. These often show their kinship to animal " tact." 

It is perhaps possible to explain also in this way those alleged 
completely unconscious associations which some experimental observers 
(Scripture and Aschaffenburg) claim to have found. Probably no so 
slight or temporary modification of sense-consciousness takes place 
that it does not enter into some connection with exceedingly obscure 
and unsuspected forms of our total experience. It is difficult, for 
example, to see a picture or a word without fusion of the visual image 
with inchoate muscular, auditory, and perhaps olfactory and gustatory 
impressions. Thus the principle of contiguity in consciousness, once 
established, may be expanded so as, conjecturally at least, to cover all 
these cases. So-called " unconscious thinking " is "feeling "-association. 

Memory as Keproduction. — The principles which control 
the recurrence of the ideation-processes in consciousness 
have already been discussed (p. 148 f.). The more elabo- 
rate processes of representation which are called memories 
are under control from essentially the same principles. 



MEMORY AS REPRODUCTION 233 

Yet the application of these principles is modified in the 
development of memory, when ideation becomes a reknow- 
ing of past experiences, by the following considerations : 
(1) The reproductive processes are brought under the 
control of the mind in the pursuit of its practical ends. 
We recall one event, rather than some other, in order to 
make use of the memory for carrying out some purpose 
of ours. "Recollection" — or the gathering together 
again of the factors which have previously been together 
in the psychosis — may be a voluntary and purposeful re- 
production. (2) The development of imagination and of 
intellect profoundly modifies the reproductive aspect of 
memory. Imagining " how it was " influences the pro- 
cesses which restore, or reproduce, the event in memory. 
Thinking " about it," or thinking " how it must have 
been," both guides and checks the same processes. 
(3) The acquisition and use of language also modifies 
profoundly the character of the reproductive processes. 
A high degree of speed and of accuracy in the recall 
of past events could not be attained without language. 
Words are compacted memories. Every word is fraught 
with a score, a thousand reminiscences. By remembering 
words we are able to remember things and to rg-cognize 
them. By the use of words as a support for the repro- 
ductive processes we attain (a) the better recall of our 
past experiences in their connections, and (6) the possi- 
bility of that varied and expansive kind of memorizing 
which belongs to conceptual knowledge. 

The development of memory as reproductive depends 
upon the three foregoing considerations in so important a 
way that each of them demands a brief separate mention. 

Memory as Voluntary and Practical. — Life consists largely 
in the pursuit of practical ends under the control of will. 
But the pursuit of ends requires us to learn how to use 
the means which alone can make the pursuit successful. 



234 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

And this implies the gaining control of the reproductive 
processes. In connection, then, with the gradual develop- 
ment of memory all the characteristics of the elementary 
ideation-processes, as they become fused and associated, 
are brought into play. But the processes of ideation are 
all, more and more as memory becomes a developed faculty, 
subordinated to control in the pursuit of chosen ends. 

In learning to walk, to talk, to measure distances and perceive 
forms with eye or hand, the intellectual activity of the child is em- 
ployed upon a basis of reproduced sensation-complexes. These sen- 
sation-complexes must be recalled in idea and used to guide the 
volitions of the child in the attainment of the practical ends — 
of walking, talking, and of knowing and using things. But the 
series of his reproduced sensations becomes constantly more con- 
densed, and the individual sensations more schematized, as it were 
(compare pp. 142 f. and 150 f.). By and by it is, as in the case of the 
trained musician, but a "leap" from certain black lines and dots to 
the complex motor activities which the vocal organs, or the hand and 
arms, must execute in order to produce the correct tones. Yet a close 
watching of the 'cellist, for example, will detect him reproducing by 
slight movements of fingers and arms the required mental images 
which are guides to the completed movements of the same limbs. 

Imagination and Thought in Memory. — That memory in- 
volves image-making faculty we acknowledge by speaking 
of it as giving " pictures " of past events. That it involves 
reasoning and judgment is implied by such phrases as, 
" I am trying to think," or " I cannot think," precisely 
what happened at that particular time. Few facts are 
more impressive than the constant confusion which takes 
place in most minds between faint memories and vivid 
imaginations or thoughts. It often occurs that one is 
unable to say definitely whether one is remembering an 
actual experience or is creating its like in imagination ; 
and perhaps no amount of thinking the matter over can 
quite clear up the confusion. But of this more later on. 

Influence of Language on Memory as Reproductive. — Espe- 
cially strong and pervasive is the influence of language 



MEMORY AS REPRODUCTION 235 

upon the reproductive function of developed memory. 
In fact, a very large part of adult memory is " word- 
memory " ; and the development of memory is in large 
measure the development of "language-memory." We 
carry about with us, so to speak, all our very prolonged 
and complex experiences done up in verbal packages. 
We only reproduce the story of them which we long ago 
committed to memory ; we do not reproduce themselves. 
Sometimes, when we have time, we sit down with ourselves 
and " live them over again " in memory. But ordinarily 
all our past experiences, when revived, only bear the 
scanty conceptual form to which they have been reduced 
when consigned to word-memory. 

Certain phenomena in reaction-time confirm the advantages of 
word-association and word-production. Thus Munsterberg found 
that the answer to such a question as, " On what river is Cologne ? " 
occupied 808 cr to 889 a ; but the proposal of a question in the form, 
" Apples, pears, cherries, etc., which do you like best ? " shortened the 
time to only 694-659 cr. In all cases certain words in our questions 
are full of memories; but if these "memorable words are got before 
the mind " early in the question-sentence the act of reproduction and 
the following choice is completed more quickly. 

Moreover, words are remembered as connected into sentences, 
propositions, trains of argument, tales descriptive of past expe- 
riences. Thus the memory of one part of our experience tends 
powerfully to reproduce the connected whole. The memory of the 
number of a certain proposition in geometry, or of the words "pons 
asinorum''' or "binomial theorem," may store for ready reproduction a 
whole train of associated ideas. Indeed, language-memory consti- 
tutes the principal portion of our stock ideas bound together and made 
ready for rapid and firmly connected reproduction. 

Nature of Kecollection. — Highly psychological languages 
distinguish between active and merely passive reproduc- 
tion. (For example, in Latin we have reminiscor and 
memini ; in German, Erinnerung and Greddehtniss ; in 
French, souvenir and mSmoire.') The distinction is not 
absolute ; and we have seen that intelligent control of the 



236 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

reproductive processes enters into the development of the 
entire faculty of memory. But we are sometimes well 
aware of intelligently and deliberately trying to reproduce 
the past, and of succeeding more or less perfectly in our 
effort. 

The peculiar feature of this kind of memory is, that 
voluntary attention considered as a selective and distributive 
energy, ivorhing toward an end consciously conceived, con- 
trols the time-rate, order, and completeness of the repro- 
ductive processes in the interests of that end. 

The following considerations serve to distinguish the 
nature of those modifications of consciousness which are 
characterized as "trying to recollect" : (1) In recollection 
some end is conceived of as being served by the repro- 
ductive process. But this setting of the end of recollec- 
tion before the mind is itself an act of memory. We 
cannot try to remember, unless we already to some extent 
remember — enough, at least, to know what it is we wish to 
reproduce more clearly. (2) The essential thing about 
recollection then is the rendering of what Sully has called a 
" vague subconscious mode of representation " into a com- 
plete memory. We are getting hold of a " clew " and 
following it into the light. (3) In selecting, laying hold 
on, and following the clew, we are choosing, — are active 
as will. But (4) we find our clew, and complete the 
desired process, in dependence upon multiform processes 
of reproduction that seem almost completely passive. The 
ideas are thus thrown up in consciousness for us, and 
before us, while we watch to see which ones will serve our 
purpose best. (5) In recollection an increased amount 
of psycho-physical expenditure is shown by feelings of 
strain and effort, while the process is going on, and of 
relief and fatigue, when the process is completed. 

A similar control over the process of reproduction may be shown 
in the inhibition of recollection, that deliberate refusal to entertain 



MEMORY AS REPRODUCTION 237 

or suffer the reproductive process, which is sometimes called "putting 
the thing out of one's mind." Men of strong character acquire un- 
usual facility in refusing attention to things they desire to forget, — 
the same effect, though gained in opposite way, which comes to the 
weak mind from lack of concentrated attention. Kant is said to have 
written in his journal : " Remember to forget Lampe " (his faithless 
and discharged servant) . 

Influence of " Atmosphere " and of Feeling. — More power- 
ful than our own wills to control the reproductive pro- 
cesses are, oftentimes, our physical or social environment, 
and our condition as respects quickened or deadened feel- 
ing. The "systematic association," to which some writers 
would reduce the laws of the reproductive activity of the 
mind, is not governed by practical ends alone. We must 
recognize a sort of artistic inclination to make our memo- 
ries fit the present surroundings. To this artistic har- 
mony between memory and the " atmosphere " with which 
perceptive consciousness surrounds us, we owe in part the 
fact that — 

" Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows, 
Which show like grief itself, but are not so." 

The adult man, on returning after long absence to his 
boyhood's home, finds the environment recalling a hun- 
dred forgotten incidents of his early life. Whereas the 
traveller in wholly foreign scenes — for example, on a first 
visit to Japan — is scarcely able to suit his memories 
enough to his own past to seem "like himself." 

In the " hunt " for particulars stored away in memory, 
the effect of the present arousement of feeling is often 
especially marked. From the physiological point of view 
we are then made to witness the effect upon the repro- 
ductive processes which comes from having the entire 
brain-mass excited to unwonted activities. In certain 
great historical speeches — as, for instance, that of Huss 
before the Council of Constance — the whole of the speak- 



238 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

er's past experience seems to be placed, under the impulse 
of emotional excitement, fully at his command. Philo 
Judseus tells us how his " inspirations " made memories 
and thoughts fall like an overwhelming shower upon him. 

But the mysterious and peculiar mental activity involved 
in the development of this faculty becomes apparent only 
when we consider — 

Memory as Recognition. — In a complete act of developed 
recollection the present psychosis is consciously related to the 
past experience of the subject as representative of that past. 
Unconscious retention — whether conceived of as a " hold- 
ing in store " of certain cerebral habits and dynamical 
associations, or as a " keeping " of ideas within a meta- 
physical entity called the mind — might be absolutely 
perfect, and yet no actual memory-consciousness develop. 
Reproduction might be secured in perfection, and might 
go on forever, and yet no faintest shadow of a true re- 
membrance pass within the soul. Memory, in the full 
meaning of the word, is a knowing of the past, and of my 
past. It is re-cognition. 

Each one of the foregoing three essential " momenta " 
must be borne in mind if we are to understand the dis- 
tinctive character of developed recognitive memory : 
(1) It is a form of cognition. In every such clear act of 
recollection I arrive at a knowledge of some event, some 
quality of a thing once perceived, some experience of my 
own, etc. This knowledge has all the intellectual qualifi- 
cations of a genuine act of cognition. In it I am a knower ; 
and without such memory growth of knowledge is impos- 
sible. But (2) what is now known is re-known. It was 
a past thing ; and in remembering it I must — at least 
with some degree of definiteness — set it in its position in 
past time as having occurred then and not otherwheres. 
This act of setting implies some developed consciousness 
of time. Especially (3) is what I remember known as 



MEMORY AS RECOGNITION 239 

belonging to my experience. It is something formerly 
known to, or having happened to, my Self. A continuity 
of experience, a stream of consciousness, of all of which I 
am the one subject, is, therefore, implied in recognitive 
memory. 

Recognitive memory, indeed, involves the consciousness 
of time, the consciousness of Self, — both developed to a 
certain extent, — and growth in the activity of discrim- 
inating consciousness as the faculty of comparison and 
judgment; but recognitive memory is no mere compound 
of all these. In the full development of this faculty we 
distinguish a form of cognitive activity which is more 
than mere reproduction without recognition, or mere as- 
similation without the consciousness of time and of Self. 
Mysterious as it may seem, the admission must be made : 
I transcend the present and, by a truly spiritual synthesis, 
connect it ivith the past into a unity, in every act of devel- 
oped recognitive memory. 

It is obvious that memory cannot be explained as though it were 
a mere succession of images, or a mere succession of consciousness of 
any kind. But, just as obviously, the degree of recognition — the 
amount of clearly conscious representative cognition — which belongs 
to different acts of memory, varies greatly. This is because the 
faculty of memory, like every other form of mental life, is itself sub- 
ject to the laws of development. The memory of childhood is rela- 
tively lacking in recognition. It is more mechanical, more deficient 
in those qualities which depend on time-consciousness, self-conscious- 
ness, and maturity of judgment. Many adult reminiscences are only 
faintly recognitive. Very often memories and imaginations, so inter- 
mingled that we can scarcely distinguish them, troop arm in arm 
across the field of consciousness. Nevertheless, we know what it is 
to challenge the authority of our own mental images ; and to come 
to the clearest consciousness that this particular event did actually occur 
in our own past experience. 

Acts of conscious reproduction which terminate in some form of 
recognitive memory must, therefore, be distinguished from those 
which do not thus terminate. Thus, for example, the meaning of 



240 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

many words in a foreign language with which one is familiar might 
be said to be perceived, or immediately cognized, rather than remem- 
bered or recognized. But for any particular word one may be obliged 
to pause and recall what its meaning has been learned to be. In such 
a case the process of recollection, terminating in a true recognitive 
memory, gives the truer description of the character in its flow of the 
stream of consciousness. 

In order further to illustrate principles already estab- 
lished we consider briefly — 

The Kinds of Memory. —As to the relative characteristics 
of this faculty which different individuals possess, or which 
enter into its different performances, psychologists have 
distinguished " tenacious " and " spontaneous " memory ; 
"poor" and "prodigious" memory; "perfect" and "im- 
perfect " memory ; " logical " and " artificial " memory ; 
" voluntary " and " involuntary " memory. Fixing atten- 
tion on the kind of objects remembered, one may speak of 
"visual " memory, or the "memory of names," of a good 
or poor " memory for principles," etc. The meaning of 
the adjectives used in such classifications scarcely needs 
explanation. What needs emphasis is this : all the terms 
are relative, and do not in the least weaken our estimate 
of the absolute value, as applicable to all memories, of the 
laws already announced. In the language of Volkmann : 
"JL memory is everywhere; the memory is nowhere." 
Or, to use the head-line of Sully : " Memory, a Cluster of 
Memories.' 1 '' 

Remarkable instances of spontaneous memory are not infrequent ; 
they are instructive as showing the possibilities of our future experi- 
ence rather than as informing us how to attain similar experiences. 
Among them is the butcher of the Bicetre who in his paroxysms of mad- 
ness recited long passages from the tragedy of Phedre ; or the painter 
who reproduced from memory the altar-piece of Rubens, at Cologne. 
Prodigies of memory are also not very infrequent ; as, for example, 
Cyrus, who is reported to have known by name every soldier in his 
armies; or Themistocles, who knew all the 20,000 citizens of Athens; 
or, on the higher plane of science, Scaliger, Niebuhr, and Pascal. 



MEMORY AS RECOGNITION 241 

Astonishing feats of memory in special subjects — like those of 
Zacharias Dase, who could glance at a row of 188 figures and then 
repeat them backward and forward — excite more interest perhaps 
than they really merit. They enrphasize the marvellous functioning 
of the brain instead of assisting in the explanation of the mental 
processes involved in recognitive memory. And, as will appear later, 
they do not afford examples for the attempt at imitation by the 
average man. 

Verification of Memory. — Experience in our most or- 
dinary life, as well as in courts of justice, throws grave 
doubts over the trustworthiness of memory, even of the 
developed recognitive sort. It is not that so many men 
are tempted to lie — at least, a little — of which we are 
now speaking. It is rather that, even with the best 
intentions and with no little painstaking, memory is so 
often self-deceived ; and this takes place not infrequently 
when its own belief is strongest and most uncloubting. 
Careful research, especially into the witnesses of so-called 
telepathy, spiritualism, and all manner of " abnormal " 
phenomena, confirms the testimony of ordinary experience 
and of experiment : not only do illusions and hallucina- 
tions enter into perceptions, but also all manner of delusive 
imaginings and misleading thoughts are involved in our 
ordinary memories. 

The problem of verifying or correcting memory becomes, 
then, an exceedingly important problem. Its theoretical 
solution takes us into the field of philosophy, in the 
department called " Theory of Knowledge." Its practical 
solution requires that intellectual and moral discipline 
which comes only with the development of the whole 
mind. But psychology recognizes three general consid- 
erations which have to do with the verification of memory : 
(1) The clearing up and completion of the memory- 
picture, with its accompaniment of intelligent belief, is, 
within certain limits, its own verification. Where the 
memory-picture is obscure and lacking in details, or vacil- 



242 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

lating, it doubts itself, so to speak. The " clarifying " of 
this picture becomes then a problem, whose emotional 
accompaniments offer a strong motif to attempt its solu- 
tion. The process of recollection, as already described, 
affords then the legitimate solution of this problem. If 
the process terminates favorably, then the recall into 
consciousness of the clear and detailed memory-picture, 
recognized in and believed in, becomes an established and 
verified memory. Thus we confirm memory by other mem- 
ory, with an indestructible confidence in good memory as the 
very basis of the correctness of all our developed discrimi- 
nating consciousness. 

(2) Social influences are, however, exceedingly impor- 
tant in the verification or correction of the individual's 
memory. If nineteen of twenty men who have witnessed 
the same event remember it one way, and the twentieth 
in a quite different way, the bare fact of being in such a 
dreadful minority will influence the twentieth man's trust 
in his own memory. Yet the one man may well enough 
remember correctly, and the nineteen be quite wrong in 
their memory. This has happened over and over again. 
The confidence of society will always, however, tend 
toward the majority ; nor can the one man easily escape 
the effect upon his own confidence from this environment 
of social distrust. 

(3) In all cases of doubt, thought comes in to verify or 
to correct memory. That possibility of connecting the 
alleged event with known causes, operating under recog- 
nized laws, which is sometimes spoken of as the " proba- 
bility " of the event, will inevitably perform this function 
for memory. If the one man's memory were of the 
highly probable thing, and the memory of the nineteen 
dissenters were of the highly improbable thing, then all 
who have confidence in the so-called "reign of law " would 
believe the one man to the prejudice of the memories of 



MEMORY AS RECOGNITION 243 

the majority. Yet the one man might be alone in remem- 
bering the most highly improbable thing, and also be alone 
in remembering aright. 

The summing-up of the matter for the psychologist is 
this : while recognitive memory is knowledge, and without 
trust in it, no knowledge at all is possible ; still knowledge 
itself is so complex and subtly variable an experience that 
it cannot escape the principle of development. To this 
thought we shall return later on. 

Loss of Memory. — Reference has already been made, in 
a general way, to the physiological explanation of the loss 
of memory. The detailed explanation of the astonishing 
peculiarities which some cases exhibit, seems thus far to 
be beyond the power ^of both physiology and psychology. 
The psychological theory can only resort to conjectural 
combinations of those principles which have to do with 
so-called " committing to memory," " retaining in memory," 
and with either involuntary recall by association of ideas or 
voluntary recollection. By such combinations we are able 
to conjecture why one thing is lost, either temporarily or 
apparently permanently, while others are retained, etc. 

The physiology of the representative processes is made 
more obvious by the modern discoveries in "the localization 
of cerebral function." These discoveries will be briefly 
given in a later chapter. It is enough at present to say 
that they show how an almost indefinite variety of forms 
is possible in the impairment of that soundness in the 
cerebral centres, and in the normal functioning of the 
association-tracts, which is necessary to memory. On 
the psychological side, the general truth should be borne 
in mind that loss of the memory of many things is neces- 
sary to the retention and reproduction of other things. 
Memory, as recognition, is always of some particular expe- 
rience ; but imagination and thought are rather forms of 
the representation of " the universal." Good memory con- 



244 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

sists not in the possibility of reproducing all our experi- 
ences, but in the ability to recall those that are adapted to 
the ends of mental life. 

Education of Memory. — All sound and safe training of 
memory must, of course, proceed according to established 
physiological and psychological principles. Of these, the 
following are among the most important : (1) The acquire- 
ment of a phenomenally retentive and spontaneous memory 
is impossible for the average man. The very character 
of our brain-structure and of its functioning prevents 
most of us from becoming prodigies of memory. Over- 
strain, loss of valuable energy needed in other directions, 
and general mental decline, surely result from the attempt 
thus to cultivate this faculty. On the contrary, (2) to 
secure the general conditions of a sound brain and a 
sound mind is to prepare the way for the best training 
of memory. (3) The control of attention, as quickened 
by the feeling of interest and directed toward intelligently 
conceived ends, is the gymnastics especially needed for 
securing a masterful memory. (4) To secure such con- 
nections between our memories as will bind them into a 
well-organized totality, and enable the weaker to lend 
support to, and derive help from, the more firmly estab- 
lished, is the effort of the intelligent trainer of the so- 
called faculty of memory. This is made the more feasible, 
because it is such firmly connected memories as are latest 
and least easily lost beyond recall, in the general fading 
of memory. (5) Remote as the truth may seem at first 
sight, the education of memory is largely dependent upon 
the cultivation of character. We are reminded forcibly 
of this when the relaxation or loss of voluntary control 
over the mental train results in the throwing up into con- 
sciousness of those irrational, absurd, and even detestable 
relicts of our past experiences, to which reference has 
already been made (p. 231 f.). We are reminded of the 



MEMORY AS RECOGNITION 245 

same thing when the " stores " of the memory of some 
person who is temporarily " off-guard " are unloaded be- 
fore our e} r es ; or when the shallow and faithless charac- 
ter of past acquirements is revealed by the failing and 
false action of voluntary recollection. 

Systems of mnemonics are safe and valuable only as they follow 
the foregoing laws. The best of them are most available in giving 
one the ability more easily to keep in mind, for a temporary purpose, 
a multitude of disconnected facts which it is desired to handle in the 
interests of some particular occasion or cause. In so far as they 
interrupt or divert the " natural life of the mind " and load it with 
petty and grotesque details, they are harmful. 

Important maxims to be observed in the training of young chil- 
dren may be based upon the experimental results of Ebbinghaus and 
others. Such are, (1) Do not undertake too long tasks of memorizing, 
in one effort, as it were ; (2) Find some meaning in what is memo- 
rized, so that it may be connected with the rest of experience in an 
intelligible way; (3) Repeat, with fixed attention, until the thing 
is " fastened in memory " ; (4) Bear in mind that a really good 
memory cannot be secured without cultivation of the powers of per- 
ception and reasoning. Nor can a good conscience be left out of the 
account. 

[In addition to works cited at the end of Chapter VII, the pupil 
may consult; Articles in the Am. Journal of Psychology, II, i-iii, by 
W. H. Burnham ; Sully : The Human Mind, II, Appendix D ; Taine : 
De l'intelligence, II, i-ii. On the training of memory, see Edridge- 
Green : Memory and its Cultivation ; Holbrook : How to Strengthen 
the Memory ; and Kay : Memory, What it is and How to Improve it.] 



CHAPTER XI 

IMA GIN A riON 

As compared with memory, that development of the life 
of representation which is called " Imagination " stands 
partly on a higher, and partly on a lower, intellectual 
level. Imagination is not a re-knowing of what was 
actual, as recognitive memory professedly is ; it, there- 
fore, stands in no such immediate relation to the acquisi- 
tion of knowledge. And yet the extension of knowledge 
into its higher ranges, the passage from the seen to the 
unseen, from the present in time and space to the distant 
and the future, makes strenuous demands upon the image- 
making faculty. It is not inventors, artists, and poets 
alone, but also men of " pure " science and of philosophy, 
who require a high development of imagination. For as 
Schopenhauer has said : The man without imagination 
stands to him of the gifted and cultivated mind, " as the 
mussel fastened to the rock, that must wait for what 
chance may bring it, is related to the animal that moves 
freely or even has wings." 

Nature of Imagination. — What it is to imagine may be 
best understood by considering the difference between this 
activity, when it is most voluntary and purposeful, and 
the activity called "recollecting." Both agree in being 
(a) processes of ideation, or image-making in the most gen- 
eral meaning of the term; (&) reproductive processes and 
thus dependent for their data on experience, either as per- 
ceptive of things or as consciousness of Self ; and (c) both 
involve a certain amount of discriminating consciousness 
voluntarily applied in the interests of certain ends. All 
246 



IMAGINATION AS REPRODUCTIVE 247 

this belongs to the stream of consciousness whether one 
is trying to recall the castle of Kronberg or to build one's 
self a " castle in the air " ; whether one is remembering 
how one felt when made the subject of detraction, or is 
trying to imagine how Beethoven must have felt to find 
his work treated in similar way. On the other hand, the 
most sober acts of imagination differ from the most un- 
certain and flighty attempts at recollection, in that (a) the 
former are not accompanied by that added consciousness of 
a reference of the mental picture to past experience, which 
the latter have ; and (6) the former are not accompanied 
by belief in the known reality of their objects, as the lat- 
ter are. 

Imagination is, then, a development of ideation or image- 
making considered as, to some extent, set free from recog- 
nized dependence upon previous experience with the actual 
behavior of Self or of things. 

Physiological Conditions of Imagination. — All our imagin- 
ings are doubtless connected (as the very word " repro- 
ductive " suggests) with the recurrence of physiological 
processes, both of the brain and of the external organs, 
that are similar to those involved in the "immediate 
awareness " of the same objects. Pathology and experi- 
ment indicate that the brain-centres involved in perceiv- 
ing and in imagining visual objects are the same. They 
also indicate that other centres may be regarded as chiefly 
concerned in audition — whether this be a perceiving of 
the meaning of sounds heard or an imagining of sounds. 
Both experience of the ordinary type and carefully guarded 
experiment prove that the motor activities of the external 
organs — eye, hand, tongue, etc. — which are needed for a 
complex process of imagination are similar to those em- 
ployed in the perception of the same class of objects. 

When Kant urged that, in order to imagine a straight line one must 
draw it, he appealed to this fact of experience. Indeed, to know 



248 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

what a straight line really is, one must conceive of a passage from A 
directly (that is, without turning aside) to B ; and slight inchoate 
movements and strains of the eye, or of the arm, are originally involved 
in this act of " conceiving." Strieker has proposed to test the depend- 
ence of imagination on motor consciousness by defying us to image a 
word in which labials or dentals are prominent (like " bubble " or 
" toddle "), with a perfectly motionless, wide-open mouth. An admirer 
of the actor Garrick once praised his wonderful gift of imagination by 
saying that he " appeared to be present in all the muscles of his body." 
The excitement and suppression of secretions, the production of burn- 
marks and stigmata, in the case of hypnotic subjects, by the influence 
of suggested image-making, is in evidence here. 

The complete physiological conditions of a complex act of imagination 
seem to involve both centrally initiated ideation-factors and also motor- 
factors — the latter both centrally and peripherally reproduced. 

Imagination as Reproductive. — The distinction often 
made between reproductive and genuinely productive, 
or creative, imagination is only relative. It is like the 
distinction made between the " original " and the un- 
original thinker. Certainly, all acts of imagination, 
however much of new creation may enter into them, are 
largely of the reproductive order. That is, they produce 
again the mental images derived from previous perceptive 
experience ; although they may change their quantity 
and their space- and time-relations, and may throw them 
into various new forms of succession or of combination. 
Such development of reproductive imagination depends 
chiefly upon two sets of considerations : (1) The mental 
images become more and more " freed " from all definite 
connection with the places and times of past experience 
(see p. 149 f.); and (2) as the intellect develops, and there 
is a corresponding increase in the complexity of our prac- 
tical ends, there is also growing complexity and richness 
to the objects of reproductive imagination. 

In dependence (1) upon the amount of " freedom " 
which the mental pictures have gained, and (2) upon the 
control of intelligence with its sanity of practical consid- 



IMAGINATION AS REPRODUCTIVE 249 

erations in view, the different imaginations of men vary 
widely in their more reproductive function. Dreamers, 
children, the insane, the most reasonable adults when in- 
dulging the play of fancy, " let go " the mental images. 
Now the soul is a great artist, a most astonishing inventor 
of stories. And, when freed from the restraints of per- 
ceived environment or of remembered fact, it " runs riot " 
in fancy and enjoys the " rout " of its own image-making. 
But, on the other hand, most adult and waking imagi- 
nations boAV in some form to the laws of association as de- 
pendent upon perception, memory, and thought. Hence 
arise both the common sense and the bigotry which char- 
acterize the imaginative products of the ordinary man. 
Not only is this faculty unable to " play " freely, but it can- 
not even " work " freely enough to enable its owner to form 
the picture of how men of quite different past experiences 
have thought and felt and acted. The views and feelings 
of B, who belongs to the political or religious party X, are 
"beyond the imagination" of A, who belongs to the 
political or religious party Y. 

In many dreams a very meagre amount of sensation-" stuff " ex- 
cites the imagination to weave about it a most wonderful story. A 
straw between the dreamer's toes was imagined as the assault of 
robbers who impaled their victim through the foot; the asthmatic 
sleeper's distress for breath was imagined as the horse of the diligence 
in which he had been riding, that had fallen and lay panting and 
dying. Often chaos reigns, rather than the lowest order of dramatic 
unity, among the dreamer's imaginings. Thus Grliithuisen tells how 
he once imagined himself to be riding a horse which immediately be- 
came a buck, tlie buck became a calf, the calf a cat, the cat a beauti- 
ful maiden, and she, an old woman. The pictures drawn and the 
speeches or poems composed by certain insane, whose disease resembles 
a perpetual dream, illustrate the same unrestrained riot of image- 
making faculty. We are told of a Russian nihilist, long imprisoned, 
the creaking of whose slippers, as he paced his cell, was imagined to 
be "the haunting voices of damned fiends." In such cases reproductive 
imagination is more like illusory perception than like recognitive memory. 



250 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

We do not need to resort to the experiences of sleep or of the mad- 
hoiise to show the disadvantages, as well as the advantages, of a " hide- 
bound " imagination. Unrestrained image-making faculty runs riot 
indeed ; but a bigotry, which is quite as far from the actual richness of 
human life and of the world of things, results from excessive restraint 
of imagination. The " Bourbon " and the " Philistine " may miss of 
knowledge through defective imagination, as truly as the insane person 
through his riotous fancy. Thus the man of common-sense cannot 
imagine that water can burn ; very much as the king of Siam is said 
to have been unable to conceive of water as becoming solid enough for 
elephants to walk upon. It can scarcely be denied that the difficulty 
which men, in general, experience, because they persist in trying to 
imagine in sensuous terms the atoms or the waves of luminiferous ether, 
affects their belief in these alleged entities. Mr. Spencer's impossibility 
of "conceiving" the Absolute seems to us of a quite similar origin. 

Imagination as Creative. — In all imagination something 
new is created or made. But this new creation employs 
as its material the mental images which have their origin 
in actual experience. In all so-called '•'•new'''' creations of 
imagination the mind takes its point of starting from memory- 
images ; then, by processes of combination and differentia- 
tion, under the essential laws of intellect, it constructs the 
ideal object. In this creative activity there is much we 
can understand ; it belongs to the activity of mind, as con- 
forming to laws, to the common-places of experience. But 
there is always something, and there is sometimes a great 
deal, which is mysterious and difficult or impossible to 
understand. Just as in memory we found " recognition " 
to furnish an element which the science of perception and 
of ideation could not wholly fathom, so in imagination the 
creative function of mind defies the same science to give 
for it a complete explanation. 

Creative imagination involves (1) remembered experi- 
ences in the forms of perception and self-consciousness, 
(2) analysis by the intellect of these experiences, (3) desire 
to combine the factors thus disclosed into other and more 
perfect or interesting forms, (4) some, at least, obscure 



IMAGINATION AS CREATIVE 251 

picture of the new unity or " ideal " to be reached by the 
mental activity ; and so (5) an end, which has practical 
or theoretical import. For so-called creative imagination 
is always teleological ; it is constructive according to a plan. 
The achievements of the productive imagination range all the way 
from the play of children or a cook's new ragout, to the discoveries of 
the astronomer or the speculative insights of the philosopher. In all 
these achievements the laws of association, the limits of perception, 
and the constitution of the intellect, are to be discerned. But in 
them all there is still an element of mystery. Even in the play of 
children the well-known principles of imitation and association do 
not explain everything. There are sources of origin that lie in the 
hidden depths of obscui'e impulse, or instinct, — the mind's forthput- 
ting of ideas, the significance and value of which are not yet objects 
of consciousness. It is not strange, then, that Mozart's father ac- 
knowledged " a gift of God," when his son played, at first sight, the 
grand organ ; or that the same son afterwards could give no account 
to himself in answer to the question : Whence came the immortal 
melodies which kept sounding in his ears? 

The Limits of Imagination. — While, then, we must ac- 
knowledge the dependence of the most purely creative 
imagination on the acquisitions and the associated revivals 
of past experience, it is not safe to set arbitrary limits to 
its inventive and intuiting functions. For the individual, 
however, the following three kinds of limitation must be 
recognized : (1) The ends sought through the act of imagi- 
nation, (2) skill in analytic observation and synthetic 
power, (3) the insuperable laws, or ultimate forms, of 
mental life. Thus the man of science or the inventor is 
obliged to limit his imagination, as the poet or writer of 
fiction is not" ; because the end which the former desires 
to reach by means of the imagination is so largely dif- 
ferent. Nature, in fact, will not submit to merely poetic 
or fictitious combinations. The man untrained in the 
knowledge of the objects over which his imagination is 
to assume control is self -limited ; he cannot work with 
creative freedom and efficiency among such unknown ob- 



252 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

jects. And over all our imaginings — serene, undisturbed, 
and eternal, as it were — preside the laws of intellectual 
development. We cannot imagine God, angels, past con- 
ditions or future social developments, otherwise than in 
accordance with those laws. Only the assumption that the 
laivs of our minds are indeed the forms of reality can justify 
the use of creative imagination in the extension of knowledge. 

Place of Imagination in Mental Development. — The rela- 
tions of our picture-making faculty to the other forms of 
mental development — to intellect, feeling, and will — are 
manifold and important. There is no stimulus and guide 
to the imagination of the artist, or of the man of science, 
which is so productive as the loving and analytic observa- 
tion of nature. Both artist and " scientist " are equally 
" true " to nature, although in different ways. But neither 
art nor science can attain the highest stages of develop- 
ment by mere reproduction of the results of analysis. 

The relations of imagination to the development of 
affective and conative consciousness are also obvious. The 
quickening of feeling, and its warming influence over the 
entire mind, are essentially connected with the highest 
flights of imagination. Conversely, those flights them- 
selves lift up the soul of the observer with sympathetic 
pleasure and aspiration. But the cultivated and strenu- 
ous will is required in the performance of the more diffi- 
cult tasks of creative faculty. For they do not let fancy 
"run," or imagination " take care of itself." They give 
to the will a difficult work for its constructive achievement. 

In illustration of the place of imagination in mental development 
— a subject which admits of illustration rather than of reduction to 
generalized principles — almost the entire history of art and of scien- 
tific discovery might be adduced. Thus we find certain old Japanese 
kakemonos representing the native musicians as wandering in solitary 
places to catch the tones which nature emits. Japanese music has 
never progressed much beyond the imitative stage. On the other 



IMAGINATION AS CREATIVE 253 

hand, the pictorial art of Japan shows the superior excellence of the 
analytic observing eye, and, at the same time, the suggestive power 
which displays the higher type of imagination and invites the beholder 
to a similar constructive work. 

In further illustration we may recall the fact that it is said of Bal- 
zac, he did not copy the two or three thousand types which play a 
role in his "human comedy"; he lived them ideally. And the author 
of " Masks or Faces ? " has shown by the testimony of most of the 
great actors that the secret of their power is the ability so to place 
themselves, by imagination, inside all the characters they represent, 
as to live the actual life of emotion lived by those characters. Sym- 
pathetic feeling and " imaginative contagion " go hand in hand. 

Kinds of Imagination. — As of memory, so of imagina- 
tion, it should be said that there are as many kinds as 
there are principal forms of presentative experience to be 
pictorially represented. If, for example, the same foreign 
scene or distant event be described minutely before a score 
of persons, each will create of it a different mental picture. 
The world " over there " — whether it be across the ocean 
or across the river of death — is a different world for 
every traveller. The fact has already been referred to 
(p. 131 f.) that some persons are and some are not good 
visualizers, or image-makers in terms of sight. Others 
imagine everything in terms of words, thrown together 
into judgments, and scarcely at all as the vivid visualizer 
imagines the same things. 

So, too, does every form of business or pursuit, every 
form indeed of mental life, have its somewhat peculiar 
kind of imagination. The picture-making of the man of 
affairs is practical ; of the man of science, scientific ; of 
the artist, sesthetical. A man cannot be conscientious and 
morally good, or cling to any form of religious faith, with- 
out possessing the appropriate development of imagina- 
tion. A brief consideration of the more important kinds 
of imagination will, therefore, assist in a better under- 
standing of this faculty. 



254 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

The so-called Practical Imagination. — Nothing can be 
carried on to great success without a considerable develop- 
ment of picture-making faculty. For, as Schiller says in 
his " Song of the Bell," it belongs to man — 
"That in his mind he ever traces 
What he constructs with his own hand." 

The boy who is devoid of imagination cannot learn even 
to construct a circle or an ellipse ; much less can he over- 
come the inability, of which a student of solid geometry 
once complained, " to get his nose in behind the figure " 
in the book. Men who plan great business enterprises, 
or political or military campaigns, or who institute explor- 
ing expeditions, must have large capacity of imagination. 

Imagination in Science. — No other faculty is more im- 
portant than imagination for the man of science. The 
great constructive minds in science have been men of extra- 
ordinary talent for a certain kind of imagination. The 
more pure and advanced the science, the greater its demand 
upon mental picture-making. But there is not a law of 
any of the natural sciences that is not given to experience 
in fragmentary fashion. Constructive mind must weave 
the fragments together. For every theory is a synthesis 
explanatory of facts by reference to an ideal principle. 

In proof of this view let what is called the " body " of 
any of the physical sciences be examined in detail. For 
example, in the histology of the nerves the ordinary text- 
books picture what the senses do not see, — the " scheme" 
or idea ; and what is really observed through the micro- 
scope must be interpreted by the constructive imagination, 
in order to convert it into the beginnings of a science. 
Especially does every form of the evolutionary hypothesis 
make an enormous demand upon this faculty, to stretch 
itself through countless eras of time, and to picture pro- 
cesses in the wombs and brains of extinct animals, whose 
grosser structure is itself very largely the work of the 



IMAGINATION AS CREATIVE 255 

same image-making faculty. Of it Professor C. C. Everett 
has said that " whether it be true or false, it is as truly a 
creation of the mind as the fables of iEsop, where the 
monkey and the fox talk together. The fable may be 
more fanciful, the theory more imaginative." 

Imagination in Art. — ' ' Pictures and statues are the 
books of the people," said St. Augustine. The truth 
which art sets concretely before the mind, and the con- 
structive imagination as the master faculty in art, — these 
are common-places of that more popular psychology which 
can best tell us many things that are beyond experimental 
demonstration. The history of music, for example, is 
chiefly a history of the development of constructive tone- 
picture-making. Enlarged scope was given this faculty 
when it was discovered that two or more arias can be 
sung at the same time, with agreeable effects, if only their 
successive tones stand in certain relations of interval. 
When modern harmony succeeded counterpoint, and a 
vastly increased number and power of musical instruments 
were placed at command of the artist, this kind of creative 
imagination became gloriously free. In the closely allied 
art of poetry, the whole mind expresses itself through the 
channels of constructive image-making faculty. " The 
imagination is in a special sense the poetic faculty." Yet 
unless imagination is clarified by thought, the highest 
creative work in poetry is impossible. 

It is ideas as intuited in perception rather than as sug- 
gested by other ideas, or arrived at by thinking, which are 
caught by the artistic mind. In general, sesthetical imag- 
ination takes its point of starting from an intuition of the 
ideal, as present in concrete and individual experience. 

Imagination in Ethics and Religion. — Right conduct in- 
vokes the activity of the imagination ; and so does every 
satisfying religious ideal. The sphere of ethics begins 
only when the distinction is made between what is, in 



256 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

conduct, and what ought to be. But that which ought to 
be, as distinguished from ivhat is now, or has been, must 
be constructed by image-making faculty. The very word 
" right," in its genuine ethical meaning, stands for some 
sort of an ideal ; and all ideals are constructions of imagi- 
nation, started in experience, moved by feeling, and guided 
by reasoning. It is as true of ethical as of sesthetical 
imagination that it is essentially an idealizing process. 

The alleged entities and accepted principles of religious 
faith are especially dependent upon the constructive imag- 
ination. All intelligent use of the words for Deity (God, 
"The Infinite," " The Absolute," etc.) and for the divine 
attributes (eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, etc.) com- 
bines, in the highest degree, the energies of both imagina- 
tion and thought. No other exercise of the mind is at 
once more severe and more stimulating than the attempt 
to picture ideals corresponding to these words. 

Education of Imagination. — The constructive picture- 
making faculty of mind cannot well be directly trained. 
Its training must, on the contrary, be chiefly if not wholly 
indirect. The old woman in Fritz Renter's novel, who 
set to work in earnest to make some poetry, did not culti- 
vate poetic faculty thereby. The analytic observation of 
nature and of human life, the reflective study of the 
creations of the world's most masterful imaginations, and 
the subsequent self-discipline which comes from facing 
one's own work in a critical and thoughtful way — these 
are the most fruitful exercises for the development of 
creative picture-making faculty. 

[Besides the works already cited, Chapters VII and X, compare 
Leigh Hunt : Imagination and Fancy ; C. C. Everett : Poetry, Comedy, 
and Duty; Joly : L'Imagination ; and Maass : Versuch iiber die Ein- 
bildungskraft. More highly specialized treatises are such as Schmid- 
kunz: Analytische und synthetische Phantasie; Cohen: Die dich- 
terische Phantasie, etc.] 



CHAPTER XII 

PRIMARY INFERENCE AND JUDGMENT 

The development of what is more specifically called 
"the intellect" occupies the logician and the psychologist 
in two quite different ways. The former aims at estab- 
lishing what he considers the universal and unchanging 
laws, or abstract forms, of all thought. Logic is, there- 
fore, accustomed to start with its theory of conceptions, 
and then proceed to show how these logical elements may 
be joined together in judgments ; and how the judgments 
may be derived from one another under the principles of 
all reasoning. Everywhere it aims at formal exactness. 
The psychologist is interested, the rather, in the evolu- 
tion of mental life, as this evolution takes place in all 
its infinite variety and concrete fulness, in the individual 
man. He therefore pries about the roots of mental life, 
in its intellectual aspect, or phase, of evolution. From the 
more germinal forms of intellection, he proceeds, follow- 
ing the natural order, to the description and explanation 
of the chronologically later and more complex forms. 

Our analysis of conscious states has already convinced 
us that they must all be considered as activities of the one 
subject of them all, the Mind. In each of them, as neces- 
sary indeed to constitute them mental "states " ready for 
objective treatment, we recognize the inherent activity of 
discriminating consciousness. The influence of attention, 
fixating and redistributing the varying amounts of psychic 
energy, as it were, is felt from the very first. That " im- 
mediate awareness " of similarities and differences, which 
is not a mere matter of having different sensations and 



258 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

feelings, but an intellectual recognition — a primary form 
of cognitive action — - has also already been considered. 
But it has been left for this and the following chapters 
to trace the further and later development of intellect. 
The stages of this development, as the psychologist elects 
to notice them, are not (1) conception, (2) judgment, and 
(3) reasoning — all definitely logical. They are rather 

— if, indeed, we can speak of "stages" at all, where the 
flow is so smooth and continuous — (1) a kind of intellec- 
tion that may be called "primary inference," a mental 
leaping to a conscious synthesis called (2) judgment, and 
giving rise to (3) logical thinking supported by language, 

— the formulating, or crystallizing, into a conceptual 
process. 

Going back near to the point where the development of 
intellect proper was broken off (see p. 48 f.), we resume by 
considering — 

Intellectual "Assimilation" and "Differentiation." — A 
certain form of assimilation is implied even in the fusion 
and association of mental images when accompanied by 
the consciousness of their resemblance. In this form the 
process is automatic rather than voluntary, vague rather 
than clear, and having to do with some simple features of 
likeness. The clock says tick, tick, tick = consciousness of 
a repeatedly " ticking clock." The pressure-sensations are 
experienced as smooth, and still smooth, fused with tem- 
perature-sensations that are cold and still cold = the con- 
sciousness of a smooth-and-cold surface (of the marble-top 
table). 

Let now the act of selective attention be applied suc- 
cessively to one feature or part after another of any com- 
plex object, with the accompanying clear consciousness of 
resemblance for the like, and of difference for the unlike. 
If this continuous and complex activity of discriminating 
consciousness be regarded as having its result in the 



PRIMARY INFERENCE AND JUDGMENT 259 

conscious separating of like and unlike factors from the 
total object, it is called "analysis." If it be regarded 
as having its result in bringing and consciously fusing 
together, some of these factors to the exclusion of others, 
and so constituting a new totality, it is called "synthesis." 
A higher kind of intellectual assimilation results, as these 
activities of discriminating consciousness become (1) more 
voluntary and directed toward recognized practical ends, 
(2) more distinct by repetition and by the emphasis of 
concentrated and interested attention, and thus (3) more 
complete because involving a larger number of the less 
obtrusive features. 

A similar process of development provides, however, for 
higher and more complex forms of intellectual differen- 
tiation also. Nature furnishes many severe checks or 
cruel punishments for over-hasty assimilation. The boy 
must early learn to distinguish between the dog that bites 
not, and the dog which looks somewhat like his good- 
natured fellow, but which, nevertheless, will bite. Nice- 
tasting things seem, in some respects, like nasty-tasting 
things; it is important not to assimilate their common 
features without differentiating the signs of their taste- 
qualities. Here, again, a more voluntary, distinct, and 
complete form of active discrimination results in a more 
highly conscious and intelligent work of differentiation. 

In general, then, all fusion of sensations and ideas into 
more complex forms, and all association of ideas, when ac- 
companied by the conscious fixation of interested attention 
upon the resemblances and differences of objects, issues in a 
combined analytic and synthetic process. 

Comparison as involving Primary Inference. — Such con- 
scious discrimination of likenesses and unlikenesses as 
has just been described, with its more or less permanent 
assimilation of the like and its differentiation of the 
unlike, is a kind of comparison. It is comparison as 



260 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

implying a sort of "leap to judgment" — a kind of crude 
but genuinely intellectual procedure which we have called 
"primary inference." Inference, in which judgment fol- 
lows upon other judgment, with a clear consciousness of 
the "ground" connecting the two judgments, is called 
logical. It is a later product and requires much more 
development of mind. But a vague consciousness of 
something implied, beyond what is immediately given, 
belongs to that early form of mental functioning already 
described. The mind is even now detected, as it were, 
in moving from the seen to the still unseen, from the 
felt to the as yet unfelt, from the present to the now past 
or to the still future. The stream of consciousness is, 
indeed, started on its way from the concrete individual 
toward the abstract and universal. This movement dif- 
fers from the mere flow of ideas under the laws of asso- 
ciation. Neither is it a mere relation of change, externally 
brought about, between the contiguous or more remotely 
successive parts of the stream of consciousness. 

Nature of Primary Inference. — There is no marked break 
in the intellectual development. Neither judgment, nor 
reasoning, nor conception, springs forth at once, full- 
armed, from the brain or the mind. We may perhaps put 
our finger on some definite point in the mental life, and 
say: "Just there emerged the first sensation of yellow, 
or the first feeling of love, or the first perception of a 
human face." But we can never find the exact moment 
when the child begins to discriminate at all, to pass the 
most rudimentary judgment, or to undertake the first act 
of primary inference. 

There are no words with which to classify accurately the different 
stages or processes in the development of intellect, so that each one 
shall not imply and involve the others. Judgment, for example, 
implies a sort of inference ; but judgment and inference both involve 
the formation of ideas in a way dependent upon analysis and syn- 



PRIMARY INFERENCE AND JUDGMENT 261 

thesis. On the other hand, the higher forms of inference have to 
be described as based upon completed judgments; and logical judg- 
ments imply the formation of conceptions, or abstract ideas ; while 
conceptions, in their turn, are the results of previous judging activity. 
We cannot, therefore, describe the development of intellect, as it 
actually occurs, by sticking fast to the logical meanings of these, or 
of any other similar terms. 

The truth, as it will appear later on, is this : Con- 
ception, judgment, reasoning, — all the so-called logical 
processes, — are not to be described as actual forms of 
psychoses, statical conditions, or finished products, in the 
flowing stream of consciousness. For it is not in this 
way that they are experienced as actual functionings of 
the intellect. As the psychologist considers them, the 
logical processes are rather successions of psychoses which 
derive their characteristics from the nature of their sequence, 
and from the laws followed in this sequence. In conceiving, 
judging, reasoning, I do not remain still and motionless, 
as it were ; there is mental movement in the very act of 
grasping together the different "momenta" of this mental 
movement. The psychologist must understand the nature 
and the significance of these forms of mental movement, 
in order to know what, psychologically considered, concep- 
tion, judgment, and reasoning are. 

The foregoing truth must be recognized in considering 
the nature of the most rudimentary form of the so-called 
intellectual faculties — the form which we have called 
"primary inference." (1) Negatively, it is not a mere 
fusion or succession of ideas ; neither is it blind and non- 
purposeful volition. But (2) positively, it may best be 
described as a relating activity, directed toward the attain- 
ment of ends, with the added consciousness of relation. And 
because this activity is a movement of conscious mind, 
which passes from object to object, carrying with itself 
(like a bee gathering honey) assimilating and differen- 
tiating ideas, and thus forming in its own interests new 



262 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

and higher combinations, it is a kind of rudimentary 
inference. Attention focuses upon the new object, con- 
sciously bearing with it impressions of past acts of assimi- 
lation and differentiation which will determine its attitude 
toward this new object. A new sight strikes the infant's 
eye; a new sound falls upon its ear; or a strange feeling 
creeps over its skin. It is a challenge -to attend, to come 
to some judgment, to answer the question : What is that ? 
This "leap to judgment," this bringing the new under the 
same category with the old, — a relating activity with the 
added consciousness of relation, — is the essential primary 
activity in the development of intellect. This relating 
activity is implied in "intellectual" assimilation and differ- 
entiation, and in all comparison, as these have already been 
discussed. They all only lay emphasis on different aspects 
of this one relating activity. 

The nature of primary intellection, and the factors and stages of 
intellectual development, have been differently described by different 
psychologists. But by all who do not solve the problem by denying 
the facts, the essentially conscious and active character of all genu- 
inely intellectual relation of objects is acknowledged. Thus Volk- 
mann describes judgment as a kind of voluntary "non-suiting of the 
fusion of two ideas which is necessary in order to raise the fusion, as 
such, into the position of an object of consciousness." Lotze, too, 
speaks of judging as "a second and higher consciousness," "a new 
manifestation of psychic energy." M. Paulhan maintains that judg- 
ment involves the separation of psychic elements which have, in fact, 
fused together, and their combination under rational forms ; it is 
" the act by which an abstract element of a complex idea is re-attached 
to a new system of elements." Ideas no longer become cemented ; the 
"cement" of the ideas is now no other than the attentive, comparing, 
and synthetic activity which is called primary intellection. 

Rudimentary Judgment. — This same relating activity 
comes to a sort of conclusion or pause in the formation of 
the most rudimentary kind of judgment. Indeed, con- 
sidered as movement in the stream of consciousness, the 
result of this activity is a completed act of judging. If 



PRIMARY INFERENCE AND JUDGMENT 263 

we consciously assimilate two visual objects as like, by 
moving the point of regard from one to the other and, 
at the same time, carrying the fading image of each over, 
as it were, into the perception of the other, we pronounce 
them alike. This pronouncement is a judgment. If set 
into any form of reality by language or by other motor 
activity, it is a proposition and signifies a sort of finished 
experience. Considered as a purely mental affair — so 
far as we are able thus to consider it — judging is a con- 
scious bringing of objects or ideas into relation with 
each other, by the focusing of attention upon their resem- 
blances or differences, until the unifying and relating 
consciousness has become an established fact. 

For example, I take two flowers A and B in my hands ; 
or I approach the building M with the intention to decide 
upon the character of its architecture. I look first at A 
and then at B ; I look frequently back and forth between 
the two. Finally, I affirm certain relations, and deny 
others, as existing between the two. But this final judg- 
ment is itself due to an indefinite number of other acts of 
judging through which I have been passing all the while 
during my attentive examination of A and B. Something 
similar is my experience while on the way to the con- 
clusion that the architecture of the building M belongs to 
the class X. 

The truly psychical activity of judging is doubtless very 
subtle, rapid, and difficult to distinguish by direct appli- 
cation of self -consciousness. This makes the psychologi- 
cal nature of judgment difficult to discover, and to describe 
accurately and completely. For judgment is essentially 
objective. Its very nature consists in bringing objects 
into relation, under fixed forms of relation; therefore 
it has little conscious regard to give to the mental 
processes involved in this act of bringing. It has even 
less regard for the significance of the forms under which 



264 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

it accomplishes its act of synthesis, — the forms of its 
objects as determined by, and as determining, the forms 
of its own development. Enough has already been said, 
however, to warrant certain preliminary statements which 
will be made more clear later on : — 

(1) Judgment is a conscious mental synthesis, a unifying 
act ; 

(2) This synthesis unites tivo successive portions of the 
stream of consciousness, with an added awareness of their 
being objectively related. It is mentally affirmed that the 
two belong together, as in some sort one ; but 

(3) These objective relations into ivhich the synthesis of 
judging brings the successive portions of the stream of con- 
sciousness may be understood either as the " laws of intel- 
lect'''' or as the "forms of things.'''' 

Processes involved in the Development of Judgment. — The 
life of our intellect grows by maturing, correcting, and 
connecting its judgments. The "intellectual man" is 
the man of rapid, precise, manifold, and logically inter- 
related judgments. It is what we become capable of doing 
through activity of the so-called intellect which marks off 
this power of mind from other cognate powers. In the 
development of judgment four forms of conscious activi- 
ties may be distinguished. These are (1) Comparison, 
(2) Identification, often so-called, (3) Generalization, and 
(4) " Storing " by attribution of some symbol, or Name, 
to the object constructed as the result of the first three 
processes. All these acts are themselves extensions of 
judgment, based upon the growth in complexity of experi- 
ence. They are made necessary in the attempt of the 
intellect to handle this ever-increasing complexity. It 
belongs to the very nature of all our intellectual develop- 
ment, more and more to pass judgment upon what we and 
others are about; and, as well, upon what we and others 
ought to be about. 



PRIMARY INFERENCE AND JUDGMENT 265 

Judgment as involving Developed Comparison. — We have 
already seen how comparison, considered as the bringing 
of objects together in consciousness, with the added con- 
sciousness of their resemblance or difference, is a primary 
activity of the intellectual life. But in developing our 
judgments we compare the objects of perception over and 
over again, and from more manifold and higher points of 
view. 

For example, the flower A is blue and the flower B is 
yellow; as respects color, the unthinking child and the 
scientific botanist both refuse to unite A and B, under the 
idea of color-resemblance. A, when we turn to it from B, 
is seen not to be like B's color-image; it is judged not to 
resemble B. This, however, is the limit of the child's 
comparison and the end of its judgment relating the two 
flowers. But the botanist compares the stamens, pistils, 
and leaves, etc., of A and B, judging yes, or no, in respect 
of the problem of likeness ; and finally, he leaps over all 
the manifold differences of the two and pronounces a judg- 
ment of specific or generic likeness ; or even of a more 
important connection. For, behold! he has discovered 
in A an hitherto unknown species of the genus X. 

It appears, then, that the development of judgment de- 
pends upon increasingly elaborate comparison ; while compari- 
son itself involves repeated acts of at least the more primary 
kind of judgment. 

Judgment as Identification. — No two objects, no two com- 
plex states of consciousness, are precisely alike. If they 
were precisely alike, they could not be discriminated 
as two and yet, at the same time, identical. But the 
intellectual mastery of the bewildering complexity of 
experience demands that objects which discriminating 
consciousness presents as sufficiently similar shall be in 
thought identified. What is to be taken as " sufficiently 
similar " depends upon the points of view from which the 



266 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

process of comparison sets out, and upon the ends which 
it desires to reach. The act of judging which disregards 
the unimportant differences of two or more objects, and, 
seizing upon their selected resemblances, unites the simi- 
lar as though it were the same, is an important function 
of the developing intellect. 

Let us recur, for illustration, to the examples already 
chosen. Suppose that the flowers A and B appear, when 
compared, similar in color; they are both red. In fact, 
however, they are not precisely similar; for one is a darker, 
and the other a lighter, red ; or one is a yellowish, and the 
other a bluish, reel. But as measured by the potency of 
the discriminating consciousness employed, and according 
to the end designed to be served by the comparison, they 
are "sufficiently similar." Then the judgment, or mental 
synthesis, which terminates the comparison, identifies 
them in respect of their color-quality. A and B are — both 
of them — red. It is thus that similar sensations, or ideas, 
or complex objects, are made ready, so to speak, for a com- 
mon title, which may be affirmed of all alike as identified 
in the synthesis of judgment. Consider, further, the more 
complex problem of judging the architecture of the build- 
ing M. Repeated acts of comparison of the perceived 
building with remembered complex ideas of different 
forms of architecture — Romanesque, Gothic, Romano- 
Gothic, etc. — end in the judgment identifying M with 
other buildings under the predicate X: "This cathedral 
(M) is pure Gothic (X)." But each of these repeated 
acts of comparison was itself terminated by a synthesis 
which either affirmed or denied the identification of the 
particulars (the a, b, c, d, . . . m) of M with the complex 
elements (the q, r, s, t, . . . x) of the predicate suited to 
the whole (the columns, arches, towers, mullions, etc., 
belonging to architecture called Gothic, or X). 

Thus do discreet individual experiences get appre- 



PRIMARY INFERENCE AND JUDGMENT 267 

hended as actually having something in common. This 
common thing is the quality X, or the relation Y, — the 
quality or relation belonging to them all. So far as it goes, 
they are "identical." This process of obliterating the 
particular mental existence of ideas, and of binding them 
together by judgments of comparison, gives to our indi- 
vidual experiences a secondary and symbolic character. 
When the individuals, which are in sense-impression and 
idea merely similar, are judged to be really identical, the 
intellect has made unities out of them ivhich are of a differ- 
ent order from those unities formed by the fusio?i and asso- 
ciation of sensations and ideas. 

Judgment as resulting in Generalization. — Already the 
significance of "universals" in the development of intel- 
lect has begun to appear. The child who mentally affirms 
"A is a red flower, and B is a red flower, too; they are 
both red," does not, indeed, mean to judge a class-quality 
(the redness) as belonging to these individuals. Doubt- 
less, this so-called "class " qualification is a fiction which 
logic appears to force into the interpretation of the con- 
sciousness of the child. And just as undoubtedly, the 
botanist who, in spite of difference in color, and of many 
other obvious differences, between A and B, identifies 
them as belonging to the same species or family, consciously 
means something more than the child means. But the 
germ of what the botanist's judgment means to him, and 
means to us, is in the judgment of the child. The child 
is "going to " generalize, is "going to " classify. This is 
because its judging acts are going to bind the individual 
items of its experience into higher and higher unities. 

Generalization and classification are plainly the same mental act 
regarded from two points of view. When several objects are judged 
to be possessed of one or more attributes, or to stand in one or more 
relations, common to them all, the judgment is said to be a "gener- 
alization." Any of these objects, taken separately, or any new object, 



268 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

which is judged to be possessed of these same attributes, or to stand 
in these same relations (whenever the judgment involves a conscious 
reference to other objects), is said to be classed with them. The set, 
or system, of judgments binding together the individuals into a com- 
munity of like-constituted things, is called " classification." But in 
this elaborate form such development of judgment implies thought 
and language, already far advanced. 

Results of Judgment retained by Naming. — It has just 
been said that language, as storing and supporting our 
thinking, is implied in all the more elaborate processes of 
generalization and classification. But some sort of a 
motor symbol seems necessary to "store " and to "support " 
even the less elaborate developments of judgment. Hav- 
ing arrived at the synthesis of many individual experi- 
ences, in the shape of something common to them all, 
we require some means for ready recall of the results of 
this synthesis. Many such results become recorded in the 
habitual activities of body and mind, as we quickly and 
almost unconsciously adjust ourselves to an ever-varying 
environment. The work of intellect in learning to walk 
is stored, not so much in recognitive memory and con- 
scious judgments, as in the automatic and reflex activities 
of the brain and spinal cord. So it is even with the use 
of the language necessary to generalization and classifi- 
cation. 

Among the generalizations stored in the way of motor 
activities that are not accompanied by a corresponding 
consciousness of relation, there are some which serve as 
means of communication between men. But the essen- 
tially human, the convenient, and often the only successful 
way of conserving and using the results of judging, is to 
give names to things and to their attributes and to their 
relations. We — that is, you and I and others — have 
noticed similar features or modes of behavior in different 
individual objects of perception ; we have compared care- 



PRIMARY INFERENCE AND JUDGMENT 269 

fully and identified the similar as, to our intents and 
purposes, the same ; we have virtually recognized the 
universal in the particular. How now shall we record 
this experience so as to avail ourselves of its acquisition, 
to communicate about it with others of like intellect, and 
to acquire further knowledge on the basis already laid ? 
Go to ! let us give it — the thing, the quality, the rela- 
tion — a Name. 

But before we discuss the later developments of intellect 
as involving elaborate thought and the use of language, 
let us consider — 

The Forms of Judgment. — There are as many forms of 
judgment as there are forms of the synthesis, or unifying 
actus, of consciousness in the process of judging. For the 
so-called " forms of judgment " are nothing but this — the 
different ways of one essentially the same intellectual 
activity in consciously relating the different items of expe- 
rience. But since judgment is always, from the psycholo- 
gist's point of view, a time-occupying process (judgment, 
psychologically considered, =± judging), we may reaffirm 
this truth (see p. 264) : The synthesis of judgment is ac- 
complished by an act which determines the jioiv of the stream 
of consciousness in such manner as to unite two successive por- 
tions of that stream, with the added consciousness that these 
particular tivo portions " objectively " (or " rightly ") belong 
together. 

It is the task of logic and of the theory of knowledge to 
discuss the doctrine of the fundamental forms of all intel- 
lectual activity in judging. Psychology may, however, 
note the following three : (1) Synthesis under terms of 
resemblance or difference. Here certain points of likeness 
in the objects of perception or of imagination must serve 
as points of starting for the mental movement in the act 
of judging. We do not bring together in judgment — not 
even in order to pronounce a negation of their " belong- 



-270 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

ing together " — things which appear utterly unlike. To 
judge, for example, that " an asymptote is not in the key 
of A minor," would be to " play the fool " with intellect 
rather than to use it. (2) Synthesis under terms of time 
and space furnishes the forms which all judgments may 
take that result from comparing events as occurring in 
succession, or things as having quantity and number. But 
there is a third form of judgment of which logic has taken 
almost no account, and upon which psychology has hitherto 
bestowed far too little of its attention. It is that (3) syn- 
thesis of judgment which attributes action to an agent. 
From the very earliest dawn of truly intellectual life to 
its close, the mind's chief interest centres in the behavior 
of persons and of things as affecting its own welfare in a 
practical way. It is what this particular thing, or that 
particular person, can do, to hurt us or to help us, and 
what we can do with each person or thing, that elicits and 
absorbs the average man's intellectual energies. 

A word more is needed sufficiently to emphasize the objective and 
practical character of the great majority of our judgments ; and, 
especially, the predominance of the third of the above mentioned 
forms of synthesis. The first thing which the child must learn to 
judge is just this : What behavior in relation to my own pursuit of 
ends must I expect from this or that thing? It must learn to pass, 
from seeing the steam rise above its cup of milk, to the judgment : 
"that particular cup of milk will burn me." For the child, the judg- 
ment " steaming-milk-is-hot " is not so much an affirmation of quality 
objectively belonging to a subject; it is rather a conscious attribution 
of a form of action to an agent. The reflective doctrine of the so- 
called " category " of quality shows that the infant is more truly philo- 
sophical than is the average writer on logic in his treatment of the 
same experience. 

But in connection with the process of naming, the development of 
judging faculty proceeds, as a series of judgments is formed which 
synthesize many similars as the same. For example, M. Taine 
describes an infant of eighteen months, who had been told when her 
food was too hot, or the sun was warm, or the candle near, etc. — 



PRIMARY INFERENCE AND JUDGMENT 271 

" Ca brule." She had also been accustomed to play hide-and-seek 
with her mother, calling out " Coucou." On seeing for the first time 
the setting sun disappear behind a hill, she exclaimed : " A Vule cou- 
cou;" — that is to say, " That-which-burns " (the agent) "is playing 
hide-and-seek " (acting as I do when I call out " coucou "). 

But we have already carried the development of intel- 
lect farther than it actually goes, in the case of normally 
constituted persons, without invoking the aid of language. 
In passing to the topics of the next chapter, however, it 
must be remembered that no sharp transition is indicated 
in the actual development of mental life. 

[References to works on the psychology of the intellect, will be 
found at the end of the next chapter..] 



CHAPTER XIII 

THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 

If one is seeking for a single term which will best sum- 
marize and express the essential points in all the more 
elaborate processes of the human intellect, one finds such a 
term in the word " Thought." Whenever we think, we are 
reasoning ; — that is, we are passing from one judgment to 
another with more or less consciousness of the " reasons " 
or " grounds " which determine the order, in dependence, 
of the successive judgments. We are, besides, both mak- 
ing use of conceptions already formed and also forming 
new conceptions. And, finally, the one essential and 
prominent thing about all thought is this : we are judg- 
ing, and then judging — always exercising that peculiar 
relating activity, which sums up and terminates the 
accomplished process of discriminating consciousness. 
Reasoning, conceiving, and judging, — all three, — are, 
then, allied forms of the functioning of thought-faculty. 

If what has been said in previous chapters as to the 
continuity of intellectual development be kept in mind, 
there is now no objection to assuming in our discussion 
the order of topics customarily followed in logic. We 
shall treat then, of Thought as (1) Conception, (2) Logi- 
cal Judgment, (8) Reasoning. 

First of all, however, let us get a properly fixed point 
of starting by reconsidering — 

Thought as entering into Complex Perceptions. — It has al- 
ready been made clear that an elaborate activity of dis- 
criminating consciousness is implied in all "immediate 
awareness " of external objects. It has also been shown 
272 



THOUGHT IN PERCEPTION 273 

that objective judgment (sometimes called " perceptive 
judgment") is involved in all maturing of the perceptions 
of sense. It should now be noticed further, that more or 
less elaborate processes of thinking often take place so rapidly 
as that the judgment in which these processes terminate ap- 
pears in consciousness as a perception. This accords with 
that view of the perceptive process which regards it as 
" solving a problem," so to speak, by passing from a basis 
of more or less doubtful sense-data to a genuinely intel- 
lectual conclusion . 

To illustrate this important truth let us suppose three 
persons — one a stranger, one the owner of a house in a 
certain city district, and one the chief engineer of the 
fire department — to hear the same succession of sounds 
(a bell strikes five times with relatively short intervals, 
then pauses, then gives four more strokes with the same 
short interval). All three persons have heard a suc- 
cession of sounds which are the same as respects intensity, 
timbre, apparent direction, etc. But how different are 
the perceptions of the three, if by this we understand 
the final attitude of mind toward a series of sensory 
modifications of consciousness ! The stranger can simply 
affirm that he has perceived (experienced a succession of 

acoustic sensations, S 1 . S 2 . S 3 . S 4 . S 5 . S 6 . S 7 . S 8 . S 9 ., 

which he judged to be) a "bell-striking-nine-times"; has 
felt curious, has thought nothing more about it. But 
the house-owner has perceived Ms-fire-alarm-signal ; has 
felt greatly excited and has seized his hat to run home ; 
because he has judged: "My house is perhaps on fire." 
While the engineer has perceived " alarm -for -corner - 
of - A-and-B-streets "; has felt cool and collected; be- 
cause he has at once judged, — " Not at all a dangerous 
district," and "plenty of water on hand." 

Experiences similar to the foregoing may serve to re- 
mind us how those intellectual activities which spring 



274 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

from, and often fuse with, what we call perception by the 
senses are a kind of tangle of conceptions, judgments, and 
acts of reasoning. The truth is that our actual experience 
is rarely, or never, purely of the kind which the logicians 
are accustomed to indicate by any one of these words. 
It is an experience of thinking, to be sure ; but thinking, 
as it is ordinarily accomplished, includes all three of these 
forms of intellectual life. The greatest, and the most 
essential one, of the three is — Judgment, regarded as a 
synthesis determining the character of the succession of our 
conscious states in accordance with specific forms of relation. 

Hegel declared that to affirm "a carriage is passing the house" is 
not a genuine judgment unless there is a question, "whether it is a 
carriage or a cart," etc. The truth in this somewhat perverse decla- 
ration has already been acknowledged in our study of perception. It 
would seem more correct to say that there is a certain kind of infer- 
ence, or leap to judgment, involved in every such affirmation. Note 
here our mental attitude when we pause in the process of sense-per- 
ception, and take a bit of time to " make up our mind." This attitude 
is very significant. What is this noise I perceive — is it the watch 
under my pillow or the click of my heart valves ? Not the latter, but 
the former ; because it is too rapid, and has such an intensity, timbre, 
etc. In all elaborate perceiving of new objects, so as to assign them 
a place in the system of our experience and a name, the same thing 
takes place in more highly developed form. Perception thus becomes 
a leap /rom judgment to judgment. In this manner the natives of the 
Pacific Islands perceived the goats which Captain Cook brought to 
them as "horned hogs"; and the horse as a "large dog." 

Thought as Logical Conception. — The " freeing " and 
" schematizing " of the ideas, and the formation of the 
beginnings of a s} r stem of judgments, are the necessary 
conditions for the more elaborate processes of conception. 
Add to this the modifications which ideation and judging 
go through on account of the use of language, or of other 
accredited symbols of past intellectual processes, and we 
have what the psychologist must recognize as the char- 
acteristics of the concept. Psychologically considered, 



THOUGHT AS CONCEPTION 275 

conception is a union of the reproductive function of con- 
sciousness with the thinking function — the essence of the 
latter being the act of judging. 

A conception, as logic employs the word, may then be called an 
" intellectualized idea," or a process of ideation as it has been modified 
by being repeatedly made the subject of judgments about it. This is 
no longer the idea which best resembles its one original, because it is 
vivid, lifelike, and referable to that one original. It is the idea as 
adapted to be used in a great variety of judgments about things that 
are " sufficiently like " to be considered under the same general forms 
of relation. It is a conception; because it is not a mere mental image 
bound down, in its work of representation, to the memories or judg- 
ments pertaining to an individual experience. It is by thinking that 
this modification of our ideas is accomplished. 

Nature of Logical Conception. — Logic speaks of the nature 
of the concept as though it were a statical affair — an en- 
tity, at least of a psychical character, that can be caught, 
examined, and found to have its nature determined by its 
" marks," its " intension " and " extension," its " poten- 
cies," etc. But psychology, from its point of view, can 
only regard this experience as a certain process in con- 
sciousness (an activity of conceiving rather than a finished 
product, called a concept). 

Psychological investigation shows that by the '''■nature of 
the concept " is meant the way in ivhich the schematized ideas 
are thought together under the different forms of that relat- 
ing activity which is called judgment. Conception is a 
movement of thought, whose terms consist of a relatively 
few and highly schematized ideas. 

The proof of the two italicized sentences given above 
comes from our experience in the actual process of con- 
ception. Every individual intellect has its own concepts; 
and the growth of every intellect both causes and depends 
upon a constant change in the character of the conceptual 
processes. Moreover, these general facts may be illustrated 
in the case of all individuals by experimenting to determine 



276 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

precisely what are the thought-processes with which each 
mind responds to the stimulus of a class-name. For ex- 
ample, let twenty persons be told to conceive of — say " a 
lion " ; and to report the actual character of the stream of 
consciousness in passing through this process called con- 
ception. There will result twenty more or less different 
responses actually given by the twenty persons. These 
differences, however, will all be resolvable into two kinds : 
(1) differences in the ideas (for example, a visual picture 
of glaring eyes and lashing tail, or an acoustic image of a 
roar, or a word-picture of "quadruped," "vertebrate mam- 
mal," etc.); and (2) differences in the succession of judg- 
ments pronounced ("fierce," " strong," " dangerous," "lives 
in a jungle," "is carnivorous," etc.). In all cases alike 
the meaning of the class-name will be thought out in a 
series of more or less highly schematized ideas united by 
continual acts of judging. But the process of " thinking 
out " the meaning of a class-name is the process of logical 
conception. Such a process, or series of consciousnesses, 
may equally well be called "conceptual thinking." 

As different individual minds approach each other in 
the general character of their experience and training, 
their conceptions become more nearly alike. Growth of 
knowledge in the race, moreover, tends in the direction of 
a certain enlargement of recognized agreement regarding 
the judgments that ought to be pronounced about individ- 
uals which are largely or essentially alike. Hence arise 
so-called scientific definitions — or guides to the proper 
judgments about all individuals that appear to be, or are 
imagined to be, " sufficiently similar." But the whole 
history of scientific development demonstrates the same 
truth ; scientific development itself consists largely in the 
enlargement and correction of the generally accepted con- 
ceptions — or modes of relating by judgment the schema- 
tized and symbolized ideas. The belief that there are 



THOUGHT AS LOGICAL JUDGMENT 277 

fixed psychical entities answering to the word-names for 
different classes of objects is, then, a fiction due to the 
unreal and lifeless way in which logic and philosophy 
have dealt with the doctrine of the concept. To accept 
this doctrine results in one of the very worst of the 
psychologist's fallacies. In rejecting it, however, one 
must not go over to the other extreme of denying to the 
mind all power of genuine thinking, as distinguished from 
the mere having of associated similar or dissimilar con- 
crete and lifelike representative images. 

Few subjects have been more debated for centuries than the nature 
of the concept. Three views have been historically distinguished : 
these are the "realist," the "nominalist," and the "conceptualist." 
The first of these, in so far as it maintains some sort of a non-mental 
existence for the concept, has no place in psychology. The nominalist 
view, in denying, as did Berkeley, "that I can abstract from one 
another, or conceive separately, those qualities which it is impossible 
should exist so separated ; " and in claiming that whenever the name 
of a class is used intelligently, the " mind must have before it some 
individual object either perceived or remembered ; " misconceives both 
the nature of judgment and the changes produced in the ideation- 
processes by intellectual development. The conceptualist view, in 
its description of conceptions as though they were statical products 
of mind, or psychical entities, is equally faulty. It is the nature of 
the processes which go on in consciousness that needs to be observed. 
The characteristics of this nature are such as they have already been 
sufficiently described. 

Thought as Logical Judgment. — Those mental processes 
which have just been described as constituting the nature 
of conception react, in turn, upon the nature of judgment. 
The reaction! results in raising judgment to a second and 
higher stage, as it were. Because I have already judged, 
or know, a lion to be a "mammal" or a "carnivorous ani- 
mal," I may unfold the conception of a lion by repeating 
these and other allied judgments. But suppose some new 
object is presented to the mind and the problem is pro- 
posed to thought : "What is it?" In answering such an 



278 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

inquiry I must, as it were, apply a number of conceptions, 
already framed, to the new object and thus try to think it 
under them. If I succeed, I answer the problem with a 
new and higher kind of judgment: "It " (the thing about 
which the question, What is it? was just raised) "is a 
so-called A " (or, " It is not B "). 

For the sake of clearness take an example : I perceive 
an animal which is like a tiger, but which is not a tiger, 
because it is not " sufficiently " like ; now, What is it? I 
incline at first to judge: "It is a tiger." But, stop! 
This animal is not so extensively white on the under side 
of the belly as is the tiger; it is brownish yellow above 
and faintly striped along the sides, but it lacks the black 
bars of the tiger on its bright orange -yellow ground. It 
is an animal ; it is a quadruped ; it belongs to the feline 
genus; it is more like a tiger than it is like any other 
species in that genus ; but it is not sufficiently like to be 
called after the name of tiger. Let us sum up all the re- 
sults of these processes of reasoning and conception in a 
single judgment and thus give to this thing a name, by 
which we may all designate and remember our conclu- 
sion : " It is a jaguar." 

Such activities of intellect as the foregoing show us that 
the secondary and higher judgments in ivhich thinking termi- 
nates accomplish a synthesis betiveen conceptions, or those 
condensed results of past judgments which are already 
familiar to us and have previously been fixed by names. 
They are judgments uniting conceptions which are them- 
selves the products of more primary judgments. Such 
intellectual achievements may, therefore, be called " logi- 
cal judgments." They, in their turn, give birth to yet 
more elaborate or correct conceptions (as the " conception 
of a jaguar" — in the example above). 

Terms and Kinds of Logical Judgments. — Psychology has 
its own way of considering what grammar and logic call 



THOUGHT AS REASONING 279 

the "subject," "predicate," and "copula" of every judg- 
ment. By the term " subject " it understands that thing 
as perceived or conceived, from which the synthesis in 
judging starts. By the " predicate " it understands that 
idea which, following later in the stream of consciousness, 
is united by the synthesis of the judging act with the so- 
called subject. The " copula " is the term which calls 
attention to the fact of synthesis itself. As Bosanquet 
has said: "The copula, which in judgment is merely the 
reference that marks predication, and has no separate 
content, becomes, in the proposition, an isolated part of 



The psychological doctrine of judgment does not need 
to take account of the kinds of judgment which logic so 
carefully distinguishes. This is true even of the distinc- 
tion between affirmative and negative judgments. For 
by "negation" is not meant the same mental process as 
the mere affirmation of difference. Negative judgment is, 
in its very nature, a positive unifying act of intellect ; 
it is the settlement of a problem for thought by a positive 
affirmation ; in it, too, we recognize the true synthetical 
nature of all judgment. 

Thought as Reasoning Proper. — We come now to con- 
sider that secondary and higher development of inference 
which is, like the secondary and higher development of 
judgment, sometimes called " logical " reasoning. This 
kind of reasoning may be defned as the conscious establish- 
ment of a recognized relation between logical judgments. 
We note in/ it (1) the relating activity of intellect as 
effecting a synthesis of judgments which have previously 
not been thus related ; and also (2) an added conscious- 
ness of the "reason" or "ground" on which this newly 
established synthesis reposes. 

When such a form of intellectual activity is more care- 
fully analyzed, the passage between the two judgments 



280 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

which are somehow " concluded together " in a new judg- 
ment, is seen to be effected " by means of " something 
common to both. This means, or mediating conception, 
is then spoken of as a "middle term." There are other 
ways, however, of expressing the results of such an analy- 
sis ; — for example, by emphasizing the meaning of the 
words "because" and "therefore." In the first case, 
I think of myself as passing to the conclusion (or coming 
to think) that S is P, though the middle term M, which 
belongs to the two judgments : "M is P," and "S is M." 
In the second case, I find myself judging (or thinking) 
S to be P because I know that it is M, and also that this 
M is P. Or, once more ; — knowing, as I do, that M is P, 
and happening to think that S is M, therefore I pass to 
the judgment: "S is P." 

Nature of Logical Reasoning. — Psychology needs only to 
lay emphasis upon the following four considerations, in 
order to set forth its doctrine of the nature of this higher 
and secondary form of reasoning : (1) The reason or 
ground of every conclusion resides in the so-called premises 
only as these premises contain some mediating conception. 
Something common — so that they are comparable as 
respects qualities, modes of action and interaction, space 
or time relations — is assumed to belong to all things 
about which we can reason logically. (2) It is the con- 
sciousness of this "r elatedness" of things, as perceived and 
conceived by us so that old judgments about them can afford 
" grounds" for new judgments, which emphasizes the higher 
development of 'intellect. From the point of view of actual 
intellect, " we relate " them ; from the point of view of 
passive experience, " they appear " to act as related ; 
from neither point of view is their "being in relation" 
a mere dead matter of fact, as it were. (3) The precise 
character of each relation thought is determined by the ends 
of knowledge. Every man reasons in order to know some- 



THOUGHT AS REASONING 281 

thing about men or about things. What he wants to 
know will determine his hunt after, and his selection of, 
the middle terms. What kind of a man is this I have 
just met ? Good to do business with, or the opposite ? 
Safe to trust as a friend, or the opposite ? As has been 
well said by Professor James: "P overshadows the process 
from the start. We are seeking P or something like P." 
(4) The intellect can understand the world only as a system 
of related beings which are ever — each one — doing some- 
thing and having something done to them, — in more or less 
uniform and intelligible ways. This is the persuasion 
which virtually gives confidence to our intellect in all its 
work of reasoning. But to examine it further does not 
belong to psychology. 

The interesting and much debated question, Whether the lower 
aiiimals think, can be answered only in the light of the foregoing dis- 
tinctions. That they make many shrewd discriminations, cunningly 
adapt means to ends, learn by experience, and even intelligently 
modify their instinctive habits of action, there can be no reasonable 
doubt. But that they recognize the value and significance of middle 
terms, have the consciousness of one judgment as affording reasons for 
another, conceive the conclusions of ratiocinative processes as serving 
the ends of knowledge, and even vaguely sense the universal " related- 
ness " of things, it is difficult to believe, much easier to deny. 

For example, shall we believe that the spider which Mr. Romanes 
describes as employing an ingenious and elaborate system of guy- 
ropes and haulings, in order to raise a fly, actually went through con- 
scious processes similar to those of a mechanical engineer in solving 
a similar problem? This overtaxes our credulity. For if we go over 
to the point of view necessary for an affirmative answer, we raise at 
once the humblest of our brethren among the lower animals to a pin- 
nacle of reason much higher than that on which we are ourselves 
standing. Indeed, in many such performances of the animals as that 
of the spider, with every increasing manifestation of intelligent skill, 
the likelihood of a consciousness of reasons diminishes. It is in being 
conscious of what he is about, and of what he ought to be about, in 
the awareness of the ends and reasons of his own conduct, and of the 
behavior of things, that the human infant early comes to surpass the 
most surprisingly intelligent of the lower animals. 



282 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Kinds of Logical Reasoning. — The logical classification 
and discussion of the differing ways of thinking out con- 
clusions do not greatly concern the psychology of reason- 
ing. Since the essential thing about the intellectual 
processes involved in them all is the connecting of one 
judgment with other judgment, with an added conscious- 
ness of the character of the connection (a consciousness of 
judging "upon grounds" or "according to reasons"), the 
different orders of relation under which the connection is 
made may serve as a principle of division. These have 
already (p. 269 f.) been recognized as chiefly the following 
three : (1) resemblance or difference ; (2) space and time ; 
(3) action and agent. 

(1) Objects which are known to have one or more im- 
portant characteristics in common with a third class of 
objects may, " with reason," be concluded to be sufficiently 
like to be thought together and given a common name. 
If S and P are both like M, then they are " reasonably " 
concluded to be like each other and entitled to be called the 
same. There is reason for 'putting them all in one class. 

(2) All objects of sense-perception necessarily exist in 
relations of space and time ; and all events in the stream 
of consciousness and in the world of things exist in rela- 
tions of time. These relations, as perceived or imagined, 
afford a system of affirmative and negative propositions 
applicable in all possible particular cases. Such proposi- 
tions are "grounds," or "reasons," for conclusions. The 
general principle here is " the apprehension of connections 
in space and time." In such chains of reasoning, S and P 
are concluded under a particidar relation of temporal posi- 
tion, or of magnitude or number, through their common rela- 
tion to M, which is comparable to both. 

(3) It is under the form of judgment which attributes 
action to an agent that all our logical inferences along the 
line of cause and effect originate and develop. Concep- 



THOUGHT AS REASONING 283 

tions of " force " and " law " are involved in this kind of 
reasoning. Conclusions involving these conceptions are 
the most frequent and important, the most popular and 
universal, as well as the most fundamental, in every form 
of science. From our past experience with things and 
with minds, as behaving in more or less uniform manner 
and always " doing something to one another," we argue 
our way to the future in time, to the distant and unseen 
in space, and even to the scarcely conceivable, by way of 
theory and hypothesis. Thus every perceived change, P, is 
inferred to be due to the action of some agent S ; for the 
reason that M, which is the known common sign of S, is con- 
nected with P ; therefore, P is a case to be attributed to S. 

From the time of Aristotle downward repeated attempts have been 
made to state satisfactorily the nature of the bond existing between 
premises and conclusion, and so making the latter " valid." Aristotle's 
own law is the well-known dictum de omni et nullo: "Whatever is 
affirmed or denied of a class distributively, may be affirmed or denied 
of any part of that class." Kant stated the law thus : Nota notae est 
nota rei ipsius. Leibnitz, in a less satisfactory way, would have us 
accept the principle, contentum contenti est contentum continentis. All 
these forms of stating the principle, — of which Kant's is the best, 
— over emphasize conclusions coming under relations of resemblance 
and difference. Of all kinds of argument, however, that which treats 
this kind of relation chiefly, is most uncertain of its conclusions. 

The neglect of the psychological truth that the relations of action 
and agent, and of different agents as " acting upon " each other, are 
most obtrusive and essential, has led nearly all treatises on logic into 
paths quite foreign to those in which walks and runs the living, 
energetic intellect of man. This intellect wants to classify indeed, 
and to be capable of a certain amount of accurate reckoning in terms 
of space and J time. But not this supremely; or even chiefly. It 
wants rather to be able to conclude how the objects of experience — 
things, animals, and fellow-men — are going to behave as affecting 
their relations to itself and to one another. Men's daily acts of 
reasoning are chiefly " dynamical." In spite of its effort to be less 
anthropomorphic, and no longer to regard nature as a system of 
self-active but related individual agents, modern science moves more 
and more along the same line of argument. 



284 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

It is not necessary to give in detail the psychology of the logical 
distinctions between " enthymeme " and " syllogism," or " major 
premise " and " minor premise." The enthymeme has been well 
defined as " an argument in the form in which it would naturally 
occur in thought or speech." This is because it puts the predicate 
into connection with the subject as a problem, which has been solved 
by the discovery of a " reason why." "Is S to be called P, or not?" 
" Yes : S is P, because it is M." In many cases of the actual opera- 
tion of the intellect, the introduction of the concealed major premise 
gives an artificial and even a fictitious character to the whole pro- 
cedure. In not a few cases such a major premise is found to be noth- 
ing less than that law of the intellect which governs all particular 
cases of logical reasoning (see p. 281, no. (4)). 

The psychology of mathematical reasoning is worthy of a word of 
explanation at this place. Much calculation, even of a seemingly 
elaborate sort, is not reasoning at all. Thus the tradesman of Japan 
will tell you the amount of your bill, by means of his Soroban, with 
great rapidity and accuracy. But his is no more a true mental arith- 
metic than are the movements of the fingers of a banjo-player. The 
simplest act of real counting, however, involves a relatively high 
development of both imagination and intellect. And as Kant was 
fond of affirming: you cannot cognize a "straight line," unless, by 
an activity of imagination guided by an ideal, you construct it. It 
is on the basis of such constructs of imagination and thought that 
genuine mathematical reasoning proceeds ; and its procedure calls 
forth essentially the same logical activities that enter into every kind 
of logical reasoning. 

Induction and Deduction. — Somewhat long-drawn-out 
processes of reasoning have customarily been distinguished 
by writers on logic, as of two kinds, — inductive and de- 
ductive. And many puzzling questions have been pro- 
posed as to how these processes could be made "perfect" ; 
or even as to how they could actually come to a successful 
end at all. From the psychologist's point of view there 
are two important principles which throw light upon the 
real nature and efficiency of both these kinds of elaborate 
reasoning. 

First : Induction and deduction are, psychologically con- 
sidered, in principle essentially the same ; both alike consist 



THOUGHT AS EEASONING 285 

in reaching some particular new judgment in the form of a 
conclusion, by use of other judgment as its reason or ground. 
Among writers on logic Bosanquet has perhaps recognized 
this principle most clearly. He affirms that " the distinc- 
tion . . . erroneously described as a distinction between 
Induction and Deduction is chiefly a distinction of aspects.'''' 
In induction we start from observed likenesses or unlike- 
nesses, of quality or of behavior, in individual cases. We 
solve our problem by concluding that the reason for these 
observed particulars is to be found in some general or 
universal relation among all " sufficiently similar " indi- 
viduals. In deduction, on the other hand, we start with 
an assumed solution of the problem which is offered by 
the individual case. We then conclude the correctness 
or falsity of our assumption by relating the individual 
case to some principle regarded as already " sufficiently 
established." 

Second : There is alivays a certain amount of hypothesis, 
or unverified assumption, in both our inductive and our de- 
ductive arguments, — especially as applied to the real 
objects of experience. The logician's perfect induction is 
not to be had. Strictly universal and indubitable princi- 
ples, from which we may infer with absolute confidence a 
conclusion to all individual similar cases, do not belong 
to the possessions of the human mind. The word " suffi- 
cient," whether as applied to like qualities and causes or to 
the reasons for an inference, is a sort of ironical embodi- 
ment of the truth. What amount of likeness is "sufficient" 
to warrant classifying two beings, or two cases of agents in 
action, under the same class ? What amount, or cogency, 
of reasoning is " sufficient " to compel, or to warrant, any 
given conclusion? That depends — always upon a variety 
of considerations, which neither psychology nor logic is 
wholly competent to handle. A practical sufficiency is 
worked out, with much mistake, disappointment, and yet 



286 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

with progressive approaches to satisfaction, but only in 
the life of the individual and of the race. 

Much subtle discussion has been indulged in by writers on logic 
over the question, How can knowledge grow by inference at all? 
Until I have observed every case of an M (m, m^ m 2 , . . . m*), how 
can I be sure that absolutely all M is P ? The answer to this, from 
the point of view of the analyst of human consciousness, is the frank 
confession : I never can be sure as a matter of mere logical argument. 
So, too, when I sceptically examine my most cherished major premises 
in the form of so-called universal laws, I am apt to come across startling 
exceptions. This is true even of the law of gravitation ; for it is not 
merely some alleged and extremely doubtful case of "levitation" under 
spiritualistic influences, but the observed star 1830 Groombridge, for 
example, which seems to contradict this law. In all the workings and 
highest achievements of the human intellect we find what may prop- 
erly be called a certain amount of assumption, or " concealed hypothe- 
sis." In fine, all conclusions are themselves only more or less highly 
probable hypotheses, according as they stand related to the entire 
organism of experience, under the laws of intellectual life. No form 
of applied science whatever can exhibit any system of laws which are 
based on an examination of all actual, not to say possible, cases, and 
which are known empirically to admit of absolutely no exceptions. 
Indeed, in every science, it is the exceptions which are most interest- 
ing, most provocative of research, most conducive to the discovery of 
new truths. The history of the advance of every science seems to 
emphasize the hopelessness of the attempt to find a system consisting 
of a few formulas which, by being based on perfect inductions and by 
being used, with perfect success, for all deductions, shall unlock the 
mysteries of the universe. If, then, the universe is a perfectly "logi- 
cal " affair, it seems likely to baffle our attempts to know it by per- 
fectly logical processes. 

The development of intellect cannot be thoroughly 
understood without taking into account the influence of 
language upon the processes of thought. In the follow- 
ing brief account of this influence, however, our point of 
view must be psychological rather than philological or 
philosophical. From this point of view let us consider, 
first, — 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 287 

The Nature of Language. — The psychological answer to 
the inquiry, What is language ? may be expressed in the 
following definition : Language, in the most general mean- 
ing of the word, is any conscious modification of the motor 
organism which is adapted to serve as a common " sign " or 
"symbol" of conscious processes. The fuller meaning of 
the definition requires notice of the following particulars: 

(1) Every conscious process — especially when it attains 
a certain intensity of psychic energy — tends to express 
itself in modifying the motor organism. The same general 
principle has been shown by the " dynamogenetic " value 
of ideas, and by the feeling of tension and strain connected 
with the repressed tendency of the motor centres of the 
brain to overflow and to send motor currents to the appro- 
priate muscles. The theory which finds the physical basis 
of emotion in the " unorganized surplusage " of cerebral 
excitement; and, indeed, the entire view taken of the 
dependence of our experience, as " of reality" upon the 
activity of the muscles, points in the same direction. 

(2) The only conceivable means of communicating con- 
scious processes is through some modification of the motor 
organism employed as a sign or symbol. (3) The fixing 
of such " signs " in definite ways proceeds in some meas- 
ure parallel with the compound process of schematizing 
the ideas and of forming judgments which include in their 
terms a number of experiences. The growth of experi- 
ence makes necessary a system of symbols. And, finally, 
(4) the acceptance of certain definite motor modifications 
as the symbols of certain conscious states, common to all 
minds, is largely a social affair. To a certain extent, the 
establishing of a system of motor symbols has its account 
in " natural " connections between some kinds of conscious 
states and somehow corresponding kinds of movements. 
Thus there are gestures and sounds which all men in- 
stinctively or impulsively employ, in order to express 



288 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

conscious states common to all ; for example, 
beckoning, threatening with fist or foot, scowling, excla- 
mations and the imitative sounds generally. 

Plainly the very nature of human development is such 
that language must make its appeal chiefly to the eye and 
ear, as something seen or heard. A few cases in real life 
(such as Laura Bridgeman's), and the fictitious case of 
the novel " God's Fool," show how man, even when de- 
dependent upon tactual and muscular symbolism exclu- 
sively, far surpasses any of the lower animals in his 
capacity for intellectual development. But human lan- 
guage is preeminently an affair of words ; and " the 
word," primarily, is something spoken in order to be 
heard. It accords, then, with both the physiological and 
the psychological conditions of the development of man's 
intellect to find that in almost all our processes of think- 
ing we catch ourselves "talking to ourselves." 

We seem warranted in affirming that some recognized 
and accepted symbolic form of movement is the normal 
accompaniment of all thinking, and the indispensable con- 
dition of all development of thought. In man's case, the 
peculiarly human symbol is the word — the movement of 
the vocal organs as moulded by conscious processes, after 
patterns or types that have become accepted as signs of 
these conscious processes. 

Origin of Language. — The psychological answer to the 
inquiry, Whence comes language? refers to the entire 
nature of man. Both physiology and psychology show 
the absurdity of speaking of a "faculty of language." 
Physiology indicates that the interpretation and use of 
spoken and written words involves, in a complicated and 
large way, almost the entire hemispheres of the brain. 
Nor is the psychological origin of language properly ex- 
plained by speaking of it as the result and the expression 
of "abstract thinking" alone. All the principal forms of 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 289 

mental life on its sides of sensation, imagination, and 
intellection, are concerned in the origin and development 
of language. But it is in the realm of feeling, and of the 
practical effort to secure consciously selected ends, that 
some of its chief sources and stimuli are also found. 

The answer to the question, Why the lower animals do not develop 
languages, is to be found in the considerations referred to above. In 
the more general meaning of the word, many species of them appear 
to have elaborate systems of "signs" — either felt, or seen, or heard, 
or perhaps smelled, or appealing to unknown forms of sensory effect — 
which express and arouse conscious processes common to all the 
members of the species. Their language corresponds most elaborately 
to themselves; as man's language corresponds to himself. The total 
cause of the differences in the forms which they use, as compared with 
human language, and in the meaning of those forms as expressed in 
conscious states, is no less than the entire difference between them and 
man, — both physiologically and psychologically considered. 

The Word as a Name. — It is somewhat customary to say 
that the lower animals cannot devise and use names as 
man does, because they are incapable of " conception " 
properly so called. There is truth in this statement ; 
although this truth is often incorrectly stated. To appre- 
ciate the facts let us recall what has been shown to be the 
nature of conceptual thinking as distinguished from the 
processes of ideation (see pp. 135 f. and 274 f.). Such think- 
ing is not confined to a train of more or less vivid and 
concrete mental images bound together by the semi-me- 
chanical laws of association. It is not mere ideation under 
the influence of those conditions which give to the partic- 
ular ideas control over the succession of ideas. It is rather 
a series of judgments in which individuals are related as 
coming under common characteristic qualities and modes 
of behavior ; and this is made possible, because we have 
agreed with ourselves and with one another to regard 
similar individuals as, for purposes of thought, the same, 
in respect of their qualities or of their relations. 



290 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

To illustrate this subject still further let us consider 
what actually takes place in human consciousness through 
the attempt to " think out " the full meaning of a Name. 
In every such case, especially wherever what is called ab- 
stract thinking is demanded, the most vivid and lifelike 
ideas are not recognized as fully representing that for 
which the name stands. We reserve the right to change 
their detailed characteristics ; and the more " content-full " 
they are the more do we recognize their unfitness to stand 
for all that the name means to us. The word "lion," for 
example, must do service not simply for me, to name that 
particular beast in the cage yonder, or pictured on this 
page of a book, or conjured up as a lively memory of some 
past experience of mine. It must serve equally well for 
you to name another " sufficiently like " beast, picture, or 
remembrance. And if we both try to imagine a lion, or 
if we talk about lions together, the same word must set 
limits to our imagination, and must make our talk intelli- 
gible to each other. 

Further reflection on our experience in using names 
enforces these three truths : (1) The name signifies a series 
of judgments synthesizing many similars as — thought-wise 
— the same for all users of the name. This has already 
been made sufficiently clear. (2) The name becomes the 
correlate of genuinely conceptual thinking only when sound 
acquires recognition as a conventional " movable type." In 
the process of the evolution of language the words them- 
selves lose much of the concrete, emotional and ideational 
significance which originally called them forth. Names 
themselves get cold and abstract, through use, as it were. 
In the older languages — as in Hebrew and the Shemitic 
languages generally — the concrete and sensuous charac- 
ter of the words is very striking. " Anger," for example, 
is " hard-breathing," "tumult of boiling," " noise of break- 
ing," etc. The "substance" of anything is its "bone." 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 291 

The " same primitive union of sensation and idea " is pre- 
served by the language of savages. Thus the Tasmanians 
call the quality of hardness, " like-a-stone," and speak of 
any tall thing as "having long-legs." (3) The name is 
the support and vehicle of the conception because it operates 
to set agoing and to guide the processes of thinking which 
originally terminated in giving the name. It is a challenge 
to every man who hears it, to think, and to think after 
the pattern of those who have come to use this name as a 
" movable type." 

Romanes declares that animals cannot use sounds as movable 
types, because they are only capable of forming "recepts" (or rather 
highly abstract representative images). They cannot, however, form 
general notions or conceptions, in the stricter meaning, of the latter 
word. "That the verbal signs used by talking birds," says this 
writer, " are due to association and to association only, all the evi- 
dence I have met with goes to prove." In accordance with all that 
has thus far been said it is, psychologically, more correct to say that 
animals cannot use words as men do, because they cannot, to the same 
extent or in the same way, think as men do. The sage little boy of 
whom M. Perez tells, who remarked of certain insects : " Generally, 
but not always, those insects light on the leaves, etc.," far surpassed 
in conceptual thinking the most intelligent of the animals. 

Language as the "Vehicle" of Thought. — The gist of 
what it is necessary to say on this subject has already been 
said. The relation of language to judgment needs no 
separate treatment from the psychologist's point of view. 
In all lengthy trains of reasoning, however, the partial or 
almost complete substitution of language, as a succession of 
symbols, for thought, as the succession of conscious ratio- 
cinative processes, is of the highest influence. The devel- 
opment of thinking in relation to the evolution of language 
thus depends upon two things : (1) the rapid and correct 
substitution of the symbol for the actual intellectual pro- 
cess; and (2) the ability to think out in detail the meaning 
of the substituted symbol so as to justify the act of sub- 



292 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

stitution. Thus it comes about that the accumulated 
knowledge of man is so largely the ability to use words 
appropriately to the actual facts and to the experience of 
the most observing and intelligent minds. Growth in 
intellect is growth in judgment as to how to speak and to 
act truly — in case one wishes to speak or to act at all. 

Of the aesthetical and other uses of spoken or written 
words, and the relations such uses sustain to the character 
and development of mental life, we can only make a bare 
suggestion at this point. 

[On conception and judgment, see Ward: art. Psychology in 
Encyc. Brit. ; Carpenter : Mental Physiology, I, chap. 6, and IT, chap. 
12 f . ; James: The Principles of Psychology, II, chap, xxii; Taiue : 
De Pintelligence ; Lipps : Grundtatsachen d. Seelenlebens, chap, xx ; 
and Volkmann : Lehrbuch d. Psychologie, II, p. 241 f. Among the 
multitude of works on Logic, that of Bosanquet is, on this subject, 
much the best : (see the entire First Volume) ; compare J. S. Mill: 
Logic, books ii and iii. On the relation of language to thought, see 
Whitney : Language and the Study of Language. On the develop- 
ment of speech and language in the child, see Preyer : The Mind of 
the Child, Part II ; and Perez : First Three Years of Childhood, pp. 
236-261.] 



CHAPTER XIV 

SPACE, TIME, AND CAUSATION 

There are some of our conceptions which undoubtedly 
stand in peculiar relations to the development of mental 
life. Among all such conceptions the most important 
are these three, — Space, Time, and Causation. To use 
popular language, which seems to be clear but which 
itself is most difficult to expound clearly, we speak as 
though all things existed " in space," all events took place 
" in time," and all changes must be explained as " due to 
the action " of causes. These and other similar concep- 
tions are sometimes called " categories." So far as the 
work of the psychologist goes he may properly consider 
them from two points of view : — (1) As respects the 
actual conscious processes in which these conceptions 
arise, and in connection with which they develop ; and 
(2) as respects the relation these conceptions sustain to 
the entire framework, so to speak, of our mental develop- 
ment. On this latter point, however, psychology can 
properly do little more than merely to note the relation. 
It must then turn over the problems it raises to philosophy 
in its two allied branches of epistemology and metaphysics. 

Nature of a so-called "Category." — It is very easy to 
misconceive the nature of those conceptions to which we 
have just given the name categories. This is, indeed, 
because these conceptions are so peculiar. But their 
" peculiarity " does not consist so much in the way in 
which they arise and develop as conceptions; it consists 
rather in the way their origin and development stand 
related to the entire mental life. 
293 



294 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

The peculiar psychological characteristics of the concep- 
tions of space, time, and causation may be fairly well 
summed up under the following three considerations : 

(1) Regarded as thought-products these conceptions are 
capable of reaching a high degree of abstraction. To 
illustrate by the first one of the three : A series of judg- 
ments based upon a wide experience with extended objects 
of perception leads one to the bare thought of the " possi- 
bility of extension in general." On the other hand, if 
one tries to realize in the form of a concrete image what 
one understands by " space," one may select anything 
whatever, from flower to star, from lightest gas to densest 
solid, from minutest speck to the hugest bulk conceiva- 
ble. All alike are perceived, and must be imagined and 
thought — however diverse their qualities — as " in space." 

(2) Connected with this peculiarity is the content-less 
character of the categories. No variety of marks — to 
use a logical term — • needs to be grasped together in order 
to give import to their name. For example, no particu- 
lar thing, and no quality of a thing, must be imagined or 
thought as dependent^ connected with our conception of 
space. (3) These conceptions are peculiarly the products 
of reflection upon the most general processes of our own 
mental life. They may be said to be formed by the mind 
in recognition of its own modes of behavior, both in 
knowing its Self and in knowing Things. 

To sum up these characteristics we may define the cate- 
gories, psychologically considered, as certain highly abstract 
conceptions ivhich the mind frames by reflection upon its own 
most general and fundamental modes of behavior. As con- 
ceptions, however, they arise and develop in precisely the 
same way as do all other conceptions ; that is, they are 
the joint products of abstract ideation and of thinking 
faculty. The process of conceiving space, time, and cau- 
sation is essentially the same as that already described. 



SPACE, TIME, AND CAUSATION 295 

The older psychologies dealt largely with the so-called "categories," 
which by British and American authors were frequently called " in- 
tuitions." In this manner of doctrine they often became rather 
unwarrantably metaphysical. The so-called " new psychology " ap- 
parently does not consider the doctrine of the categories as requir- 
ing any thoughtful treatment whatever at its hands. In this manner 
of conduct it either ingenuously confesses its intention to confine 
itself to a portion of psychology, or else it rather unwarrantably 
neglects some of its own self-chosen business. For the human mind 
undoubtedly does, as a matter of fact, frame and cherish these con- 
ceptions as the most universal and necessary forms of all known 
existences. And no sincere and thorough student of psychology can 
consider anything pertaining to the business of the mind as foreign 
to himself. 

The name " intuition " for such conceptions as space, time, and 
causation, is most inappropriate ; and to class them together as belong- 
ing to a so-called faculty misleads us. To "intuit" is most properly 
to see presentatively, face to face, as it were ; envisagement is the char- 
acteristic of intuitive mental activity. But even if we speak of our- 
selves as " having intuitions " of spaces, times, causes, instead of 
intuitively perceiving things as extended, successive, and acting upon 
each other, we cannot apply the same terms to our apprehension of 
the categories, Space, Time, and Causation. The conscious processes 
which correspond to these abstract conceptions are the furthest pos- 
sible from an envisagement, or face-to-face acquaintance, such as we 
have with the objects of perception and of imagination. 

A word of explanation will suffice to describe the pecul- 
iar nature of the categories as respects their relation to 
the entire mental life. This relation is such that they 
may be spoken of as the most general, content-less, and 
yet necessary forms of the mind's functioning ; or, again, 
as the forms of all cognition — always actually, although, 
until brought out by reflection upon ourselves, uncon- 
sciously operative. Perhaps a sentence from the author's 
Philosophy of Knowledge will help us to grasp this 
thought: "By categories we mean simply those forms of 
the arising, the self-relating, and the development of our 
own ideas, which we believe to be shared by all men and 



296 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

hold to belong to the unchanging constitution of the 
mind." 

The customary tests of a category, as given by the older psycholo- 
gists, were (1) originality, (2) universality, (3) necessity. These 
characteristics correspond with our actual experience, only if we 
interpret the words correctly. The conceptions of space, time, and 
causation, may be called " original " because an analysis of the expe- 
rience in which the conceptions arise shows nothing lying back of the 
experience itself which will serve to explain them, or from which we 
may derive them. This was really true of our doctrine of perception 
as giving us an "immediate awareness" of things external and ex- 
tended ; it was true of our doctrine of memory as presenting us with 
events that appear as ideas present now in consciousness, but belong- 
ing to past time. The categories are " universal " and " necessary," 
because all men do perceive, conceive, and think of things as spatially, 
temporally, and causally related ; nay, they must so perceive, conceive, 
and think of them, because "it is their nature" (the nature of the 
men) so to do. They are forms of intellectual functioning. 

Space as a so-called " Category." — The doctrine of space 
as a category, so far as the psychologist goes, is nothing 
more than the history of the development of the concep- 
tion which answers to the word. For psychology " empty 
space," or "mere space," is only an abstraction, resulting 
from a developed activity of memory, imagination, and 
judgment, in dependence upon presentations of sense 
already acquired. In order, then, to develop this doc- 
trine it is simply necessary to consider (1) how imagina- 
tion and thought modify our perceptive experience of ex- 
tended things; and then (2) how we, by reflecting upon 
this way of the mind's behavior, reach yet more abstract 
and higher forms of conception. First of all we briefly 
consider — 

The Formation of the Conception of Empty Space. — Let us 
suppose that two highly elaborate systems of perceptions 
— those of sight and those of skin, muscles, and joints — 
have already been developed. They have become fused 
and associated in all our knowledge of things ; but by the 



SPACE, TIME, AND CAUSATION 297 

same activity of discrimination which brought this about, 
they can be in a measure separated. We can discrimi- 
nate the thing as seen,, from the same thing as touched. 
Meantime, vaguer forms of space-perceptions by the senses 
of hearing and smell have become connected with our con- 
ception of the same thing. All this affords a basis for 
the general notion of extension as a quality of things, 
as distinguished from the sensuous intuition of this par- 
ticular thing as extended to any of the particular senses. 
Empty space, for nose and ear, means all the space that lies 
between the object which emits the odor or the sound and 
our own bodies. Empty space for touch means all the 
space in which visual objects, that are not also solid so 
as to oppose our movements, lie extended. Empty space 
to sight means all that space which is limited by the oppo- 
sition of things to our movement, through it, but which 
may be filled up with a perceived or imagined variety of 
visual extensions. 

The process of discrimination which distinguishes areas 
that are filled to one or more senses, but empty to some 
other sense, needs only to be carried further in order to 
secure the conception of an "absolutely empty" space. 
If the room is quite empty to all touch-perceptions, and 
to all sight-perceptions so far as particular things in it 
are concerned, still I can measure its size (or extension) 
by moving my eyes, or by walking from side to side. By 
both forms of perception I encounter limits when I reach 
the opposite walls of the room; but between these walls 
neither sight nor touch perceives any thing. The room, 
then, kt has no thing in it " — either visual thing or tangi- 
ble thing ; " it is quite empty," yet it has extension since 
I can measure it with both eye and moving body. It is 
filled with mere extension ; it is occupied by empty space. 
This conception of " nothing but space as itself extended " 
cannot be imaged except in terms of either visual or 



298 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

tactual extension, " as of " a thing ; but it can be thought 
as the mere possibility of being filled tvith any kind of ex- 
tended things. 

Conception of "Pure" Space-Relations. — It has already 
been shown that the principal conceptions of the spatial 
properties and spatial relations of things are based upon 
perceptive experiences with sight and touch. These rela- 
tions and properties for things visual can only be conceived 
of in terms of sight ; and the same thing is true of things 
as known by touch. But considered — that is judged or 
thought about — as mere properties and relations, the two 
forms of experience are largely identical. They are not, 
however, wholly so. And the most highly developed space- 
conceptions of the blind have not in them the possibilities of 
abstraction and freedom from the limits of sense which 
belong to visual space-conceptions. It is looking into the 
sky and "thinking about" the immensely distant stars 
which gives us our sensuous basis and up-lift to imagina- 
tion and thought. For the blind man the conception of 
limitless space is realized in the form of a very different 
possible experience ; he thinks of himself as swimming 
or walking, in a homogeneous element, — on and on, with- 
out opposition and yet without stopping. 

The elaborate scientific conceptions of space, of the 
astronomer for example, are formed in essentially the same 
manner as those of the average man. The scientific intel- 
lect simply carries the processes of abstraction and judg- 
ing much further. In the process of abstraction the ideas 
become more and more schematic ; and, finally, an elaborate 
system of symbols is used in order to hold and convey 
whole groups of spatial properties and spatial relations, 
grasped together by a single sign. In such processes of 
abstract thinking symbols take the place of concrete images 
of sight, and even of words ; and thus the mathematics of 
space is elaborated as though space were some kind of an 



SPACE, TIME, AND CAUSATION 299 

entit} r , itself extended in three dimensions, for which the 
symbols stand as representative. But when the thinker 
gives meaning to his symbols he can only appeal to the 
same experience which makes up the "plain man's" con- 
sciousness of space. 

These are not the final words about space. But when it 
has been shown that, as a conception, it is framed and 
developed by essentially the same mental activities as 
characterize all processes of conceptual thinking, and the 
peculiar relation has been noted in which it stands to the 
origin and growth of all our experience of things, all has 
been said that belongs to psychology to teach concerning 
the nature of Space. 

Time as a so-called "Category." — On this subject nothing 
need be added to what has already been said, except to call 
attention to two truths : (1) The sensuous data on which 
the conception of time reposes differ from those on which 
reposes the conception of space. All events — hence all 
experiences — take place in time. But hearing, rather than 
touch or sight, is preeminently the " time-sense." (2) The 
range in the application of the conception of time is much 
greater than that of the conception of space. Phenomena 
of consciousness, whether of Self or of Thing, have time- 
properties and time-relations. It is necessary, then, to 
begin with indicating the nature of — 

Elementary Time-Consciousness. — In order to understand 
the nature of that aspect of all conscious states in which 
the conception of time has its roots, it is necessary to 
observe the following truths of experience : (1) All the 
contents of consciousness, in order to be known as related 
in time, must be somewhat prolonged processes rather than 
instantaneous events. All conscious states actually take 
time to form themselves. For this reason we object to the 
favorite term, " the specious present," to indicate the unit 
of psychological time. It is just this present which is real 



300 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

— the actual "time-grasp" of consciousness. It is the 
mathematical present which is specious and unreal. The 
real present is never a non-enduring " now." (2) The 
consciousness of time, whether of the endurance of 
state or of a succession of states, is itself a process. The 
apprehension of time is itself a time-experience. (3) Con- 
scious states, as considered by themselves, all have an aspect 
or quality, which we may call " endurance " ; and when 
compared they stand in a relation which we may call " suc- 
cession." (4) Attention, as stimulated by emotional 
accompaniments and effects is directed to this aspect, or 
quality ; and in connection with this focusing of atten- 
tion, all the activities of the intellect are called out in 
forming and developing the conception of time. 

In a word : Every intellect constructs its own time-con- 
sciousness ; for the consciousness of time is itself a conscious 
process, but its peculiarity is, that it is an intellectual appre- 
hension of all the contents of consciousness as processes, 
enduring and successive. 

In the very young infant all rhythmic events in consciousness 
stimulate and assist the development of the earlier apprehensions of 
time. To swing a bright ball before its eyes, to croon tunes in its 
ears, to rock it in a cradle, or to sway it in one's arms, is to awaken 
the elementary time-consciousness. "Again," "again," and "yet 
again," — sensations similar in quality but placed in succession in the 
stream of consciousness; — such are the materials which this form of 
intellectual reaction finds most stimulating. But under prolonged 
painful states, or when forced to wait for gratified desire, the impres- 
sion of duration is stamped deep into experience. How long that 
unbearable pain seems ! How sudden the change of state when a 
fall comes, or its nursing bottle is rudely jerked away ! 

As the conscious states are compared with each other " timewise," 
the consciousness of present, past, and future in time, becomes more 
clearly defined. No definite conception of these three forms of time 
belongs, of course, to the earlier time-consciousness of the child. It 
is the work of imagination and intellect which converts the vaguer 
consciousness of a "still-there," into the conception of "present time" 



SPACE, TIME, AND CAUSATION 301 

of the "now-going" or "just-gone," into the conception of "past 
time"; of the " not-yet-there " but coming, into the conception of 
"future time." 

Development of the Conception of Time. — In the ordi- 
nary life of the child the succession of sense-perceptions, 
memories, and mental images accompanied by feelings of 
expectation, flows on at a tolerably uniform rate. And 
attention — to borrow a figure of speech from Dr. Ward 
— moves " like the foot of a snail " rather than " by hops 
from one definite spot to another." " Thus our perception 
of a period of time is not comparable to so many terms in 
a series of finite units, any more than it is to a series of 
infinitesimals." 

Experiences occur, however, which concentrate atten- 
tion on this time-quality of the different experiences, and 
so bring the consciousness of time to a " sharper point," 
as it were. These are, for the most part, such experiences 
as, on account of their painful or pleasurable character, 
excite a strong interest in their own duration, or in the 
repetition of their memory-image in its original connec- 
tions, or in their anticipatory mental representation. Such 
experiences emphasize the present, past, and future of the 
numerically different conscious states. They constitute a 
challenge to conceive of these states, and to classify them, 
in another way than by their similarities and differences 
of quality or of locality. Thus our conceptions of present, 
past, and future, as qualifications of events, antedate our 
conception of time. The latter conception is, indeed, 
the result of a further process of generalization upon the 
basis of the earlier conceptions. We understand the 
three kinds of time before we conceive of Time in general. 

We cannot speak of the conception of " empty " time 
with the same meaning as that which applies to this adjec- 
tive in connection with our conceptions of space. All 
time is equally filled with the different varieties of our 



302 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

sense-experience. We cannot empty any of them, in 
respect of their time-qualification ; for they are all alike 
processes in time. For that very reason, however, no 
matter how much alike or unlike as respects their contents 
simply, as respects time-consciousness all the conscious states 
are to the intellect the same. They are " assimilable " under 
the one conception of time. Furthermore, some of them 
are much more constant in the stream of consciousness 
than are others ; the time-rate of their change is rela- 
tively slower (comp. p. 29 f.). They, therefore, serve as 
a background on which the more fleeting experiences 
stand recorded, For example, one may steadily observe 
a horse running for several minutes, while repeatedly 
noting the brief convulsive movements of the second- 
hand of a watch. Or one may think continuously of 
home and friends, while the " fringes of consciousness " 
flutter momently with the changing scenery of landscape 
seen through the window of the railway car. Thus the 
thought of that qualification of duration in which all 
events share, and of that relation of succession in which 
all events stand to each other, is stimulated and developed. 
The further work of the mind upon this time-experience 
is essentially the same as that which is involved in the 
elaboration of all our conceptions. This work results in 
picturing a series of events, regardless of their definite 
qualities, running on and running on — with the possi- 
bility of applying to the series some standard of meas- 
urement an indefinite number of times. In this way a 
vague conception of mere time is brought before the mind. 
Strictly speaking, however, " empty time " is a psychologi- 
cal fiction, is purely negative so far as its " emptiness ' ; 
goes. Even more true is this of the conception of " in- 
finite time." The attempt to frame this conception ends 
in a negative judgment : no limit to its duration, or to the 
succession of events that may occur in it, must be fixed. 



SPACE, TIME, AND CAUSATION 303 

The Conception of Number. — Counting is a highly intel- 
lectual and imaginative process, involving much more 
than a discriminating judgment as to the comparative 
quantity of certain objects of perception. It requires 
also the development of conceptions of space and of time. 
Each thing is discerned as separable in space from some 
other ; and yet both things must be judged as coming 
under terms of some relation. The particular relation 
depends upon the point of view adopted, and the end 
chosen to keep in view. Thus the table is one table, Avith 
three parts (top, standard, and legs) ; or it is twenty dif- 
ferent pieces of wood put together ; or it is countless 
millions of molecules and atoms. When I count, I agree 
with myself that I will disregard the other unlikenesses 
of the things I am counting, and will consider the 
things counted as separate and yet unified by being 
judged under some idea of mine. 

Conceptions of number all result from counting things 
and then judging them together under terms for each one 
of all the groups of individuals which we choose to con- 
stitute into that group — either for practical or for theo- 
retical purposes. Here the repetition of some standard, 
some measuring idea, is always implied ; whether it is so 
much space, or so many things, or so many events, upon 
which the intellectual activity of numbering falls. At 
the basis of the whole process lies the obscure yet funda- 
mental work of discriminating consciousness. And the 
difference between the animal's discriminations of quantity 
and man's conceptions of number, is measured by the entire 
difference between the imaginations and intellects of the 
two kinds of sentient beings. 

Causation as a so-called "Category." — • Neither the ordi- 
nary nor the scientific conception of causation is a simple 
and unanalyzable affair. This conception cannot, there- 
fore, be called a " category " in the same meaning of the 



304 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

word which applies to space and to time. If, for example, 
we pronounce any event (as the fall of a spark into a keg 
of gunpowder) to be "the cause" of another event (the 
explosion with its immediate accompaniments), we are 
recognizing the valid application to a particular instance 
of a variety of fundamental conceptions. Conceptions of 
Being, Action, Relation, Time, Reason, or Ground, are all 
plainly involved in such a judgment. Only a little less 
obviously do we find present in every such judgment 
vague ideas of Identity, Unity, and Force. 

Moreover, if the origin and development of the concep- 
tion of causation be traced, and the old-fashioned tests of 
" originality," " universality," and " necessity," be applied, 
it will be found that these tests have now a different and 
more doubtful meaning. It is difficult to formulate this 
so-called category in any such way that every man will be 
forced to recognize the formula as faithfully stating all the 
facts, without any possible or conceivable exception, of his 
experience. And as to the conceptions of causation, its 
so-called " law " and universality, not to say necessity of 
application, which are accepted by modern science, — they 
are yet more abstract, doubtful and remote from the ordi- 
nary consciousness. 

Elementary Consciousness of Causation. — There is no rea- 
sonable question, however, as to the kind of experience in 
which man's ideas of cause and effect have their rise. 
The failure to recognize this experience was one of the 
most mischief-making of the mistakes of the older psy- 
chology. It is in connection with the more careful study 
of "motor consciousness," of the human being as always 
in action and thus experiencing associated changes in his 
own self-feeling and in perceived things, that the correct 
doctrine of this conception is established. But we have 
seen that all consciousness is in one of its most important 
aspects, motor ; and that neither perception of things nor 



SPACE, TIME, AND CAUSATION 305 

consciousness of self can be accounted for without assign- 
ing an important place to the active and conative elements 
of experience. It may easily be apparent, then, why the 
human mind feels warranted in framing the picture of a 
world of objects which are always " doing something to 
each other." It is in the use of the muscles as dependent 
upon conation and in association with the feeling of effort 
and tvith various forms of pleasurable -and painful feeling, 
that the conception of causation has its origin. 

Analysis shows that our primitive experience involves 
the following particulars : (1) The immediate awareness 
of ourselves as active, the fact of conative self-conscious- 
ness ; (2) the immediate awareness of ourselves as suffer- 
ing, as " undergoing " changes of affective consciousness, 
which we will not or which are not according to our will ; 
(3) the closely accompanying perception of the changed 
relations of things, to us and to one another ; (4) the as- 
sociation, in dependent connection, of these experienced 
and perceived changes, according to the forms of repre- 
sentative faculty ; (5) the inchoate work of intellect in 
the reduction of this total experience to uniform modes 
of its occurrence, and the formation of the beginnings of 
a conception of "law" as applied to the changing relations 
of ourselves and of things. 

Professor Preyer, in his book on " The Mind of the Child," II, 
p. 191 f ., correctly finds the genesis of the conception of causation in 
"the perception of a change produced by one's own activity" ; he speaks 
of "the most remarkable day, from a psycho-genetic point of view," 
in the life of the infant, as " the one in which he first experiences the- 
connection of a movement executed by himself with a sense-impression fol- 
lowing upon it." In the case of his own child it was the tearing and 
crumpling of paper in which Preyer recognized the birth of this con- 
ception. He found the child from the tenth to the thirty-third 
month, doing and observing the effects of his doing, in all possible 
ways, with an amazing persistency. The infant pulls out and pushes 
in a drawer ; he tears the covers of a book ; he digs and scrapes to- 



306 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

gether the sand ; he puts shells, stones, or buttons in rows ; he pours 
water in and out of bottles and cups, etc. In a word, he is acting 
and at the same time observing the changes in himself and in things 
which follow upon his actions. 

Development of the Conception of Causation. — The an- 
thropomorphic way in which the child regards things as 
acting after the pattern of himself is too well known to 
require detailed illustration. The transition between him- 
self and other human beings is suggested by all his expe- 
rience ; the transition to the animals, with which he 
quarrels or plays, is scarcely more difficult. " I hit the 
boy, and he hit me back " ; or, " I kicked the dog, and the 
dog bit me," are typical instances of such experiences. 
But this attribution of activity dependent upon relations, 
and followed by changes in relations, is not confined to 
living beings. And, indeed, how can it be? The related 
changes of all things are interpreted and explained by us 
after the analogy of our experience of ourselves with 
things. All popular language to express the conception 
of causation illustrates this. " The poker makes the fire 
burn " ; and " The fire makes the poker red or hums it 
up." In general, it is the projection of our experience with 
ourselves into the world of related things, under the impulse 
of the desire so to knoiv things as to adjust ourselves to them, 
ivhich results in framing the general notion of causation. 

Finally, widening interests in the world stimulate the 
imagination and intellect to certain other more abstract 
and comprehensive generalizations. New experiences con- 
stantly confirm, or break up and readjust, the old judg- 
ments as to what in A is the cause of changes in B. We 
never find ourselves possessed of a perfectly sure and in- 
vincible knowledge of what the related things are going 
to do, in vieiv, as it were, of their changing relations to 
each other. But the one impression, or conviction, which 
remains is this : in all their doing they must " pay some 



SPACE, TIME, AND CAUSATION 307 

regard " to each other. This conviction deepens and ex- 
pands with the growth which the mastery of intellect 
attains over the different items of experience. It may 
be stated in this somewhat vague way : All things are 
regarded as having the reasons for their behavior, in part, 
in their relations to other things. Only thus can that pro- 
gressive unification of experience take place which is the laiv 
of the very life and growth of the intellect itself. 

[On Space and Time consult, besides the larger psychologies, 
Nichols : The Psychology of Time ; Hodgson : Time and Space, chaps, 
ii-iv; Vierordt : Der Zeitsinn ; and articles in Mind, vol. Ill, pp. 433 f. ; 
and X, pp. 227, 377, and 512. On the psychology of Causation, see 
the author's Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 475 f., 
500 f.; Philosophy of Mind, p. 218 f.; Philosophy of Knowledge, 
chaps, vii and x. Comp. Ward : Encyc. Brit., XX, p. 82 f. ; Hoff- 
ding: Psychology, V, 4.] 



CHAPTER XV 

KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND KNOWLEDGE 
OF SELF 

It is facts of knowledge in which the science of psy- 
chology, as well as every form of science, has its origin ; 
and to facts of knowledge it must appeal to establish its 
claims. The right to make this appeal in such manner as 
implies a correspondence between the descriptive history 
of mind and the life of a real being which bears that name, 
is a matter for philosophy to debate. In the same manner 
it devolves upon philosophy to examine the ultimate war- 
rant on which rests the popular assumption that the forms 
of mental representation and of conceptual thinking corre- 
spond with the real nature. and actual changes of things. 

Psychology, as the science of conscious states, — of their 
nature, genesis, and development, — is not, however, with- 
out a certain obligation here. "The relation of knowing 
is," indeed, "the most mysterious thing in the world;" 
and knowing, both as psychical fact and as valid represen- 
tation of reality, must be assumed by the psychologist. 
On the other hand, it is part of his task to give at least 
the descriptive history of the genesis and development of 
the various kinds of cognitive consciousness. This has 
already been accomplished in large measure by our study 
of the elements and the growth of perception, memory, 
and thought. It remains to add some further notice of 
how the two sorts of developed cognition — that of Things 
and that of Self — come about. 

The Nature of Knowledge. — We cannot, of course, define 
knowledge, or even accurately describe what is meant by 

308 






KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND OF SELF 309 

the word, except by using terms of knowledge. We can 
tell what is "known about" processes of knowledge only 
by assuming that those to whom the account comes will 
be able to verify it by facing themselves, as they them- 
selves experience the same processes. Two most impor- 
tant considerations should be mentioned at once, however; 
for they are almost uniformly overlooked, not only in the 
popular analysis, but also in the analysis of many psychol- 
ogists. First: From the psychological point of view know- 
ledge is a development. Our mental life does not begin 
with genuine cognitive states of consciousness. It grows 
not only in knowledge, but also into knowledge — into 
more and more of what alone is entitled to be called 
genuine cognition. We may, therefore, speak of stages 
and degrees in the growth of knowledge. 

Second: The particular complex form of development 
ivhich is called " knowledge " involves, in a living unity, 
all the activities of the mind. Emphatically it must be 
affirmed : It is not intellect alone that knows, it is we who 
know. Mere thinking, if such an experience were at all 
possible, might go on to all eternity and no cognition of 
any sort result. Were not man a being of just such affec- 
tive and conative, as well as intellective, faculties as 
actually belong to him, he would not be the knower that 
he is. But this point is so important as to demand further 
consideration. 

Knowing as involving Feeling and Will. — That the growth 
of knowledge involves the development of all forms of 
so-called intellective faculty — of attention, discrimina- 
tion, memory, imagination, judgment, and thought — is 
universally acknowledged. But the important part which 
feeling plays in the development of cognition has been 
relatively neglected by psychology. The affective modi- 
fications of consciousness, however, influence our cogni- 
tions in the following three important ways : (1) As 



310 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

feelings of intellectual curiosity, of anticipatory pleasure 
in discovery, etc., they serve the general purpose of stimu- 
lating the more purely intellective functions of mind. 
(2) As feelings of relation, in various different forms, 
they accompany, conduct, and inhibit or reinforce all the 
intellectual activities, — the work of imagination, memory, 
sense-perception, judgment, and reasoning (comp. p. 95 f.). 
But (3) emotional factors and attitudes of the mind enter 
into and determine the very character of the cognitive 
processes, as it were. Intellect mid feeling blend in all 
cognition ; and the complex result — the very object of know- 
ledge — is determined by both. 

Our experience with illusions and hallucinations illustrates the 
statement just made. The feeling of fatigue makes the lifted 
weight to be perceived heavy; the feeling of disappointed expecta- 
tion may make it appear light. The feeling of expectation may even 
create an object of perception to correspond to itself. Emotions of 
disgust or of shrinking make the object to be known as ugly or 
fearful. It is not the unscientific man alone who puts his joresenti- 
ment or prejudice (his ^re-judgment in the form of feeling) into 
what he perceives, remembers, thinks, and so knows; it is the 
scientific expert as well. Witness the physicist who, on lifting the 
metal for the first time, felt the actually light-weight potassium to be 
very heavy ; or the other man of science who, through the vacuum, 
distinctly heard the ticking of the clock, because his theory of sound 
required that its ticking should, under these circumstances, be audible. 
The more carefully guarded is our "psychical research," the more 
apparent becomes the influence of all manner of subtle emotional 
elements upon what men most certainly know to be true. At a recent 
meeting of a scientific society, those present heard its President affirm 
that he had found it impossible to get from his colleagues in science 
a statement of facts known to them uncolored by their feelings 
toward the current theories of evolution. 

After all that has already been discovered as to the 
manner in which willing enters into all the cognitive pro- 
cesses, — such as the focusing and distribution of atten- 
tion, the train of associated ideas, the sequence and 
selective traits of recognitive memories, the features 



KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND OF SELF 311 

emphasized and made clear in conceptual thinking, the 
acceptance or rejection of disturbing emotions, etc., — it 
is scarcely necessary to discuss the matter over again. 
"How can a man learn to know himself?" asks Goethe; 
and his answer is: "By reflection never, only by action." 
The same thing is true of the knowledge of things. It is 
only by willing, and thus experiencing the reactionary effects 
of ivilling, that we attain any knowledge either of Self or 
of Things. 

It is difficult to over-emphasize the importance of this 
view of the psychology of knowledge. The cognitive 
processes are never colorless and passive ; they are warm 
with feeling and realized only as the result of voluntary 
activity. I cannot know myself as I am, without know- 
ing myself as an emotional and voluntary knower. And 
it is only in and through our active experience with things 
in moulding them and in being subjected to their various 
forms of influencing us, that we attain a knowledge of 
nature. And, indeed, nature, as known to us, is a system 
of beings which are constantly in a condition of interac- 
tion with us and with one another. 

The same truth can be argued from the point of view 
which considers the origin and nature of the conception 
of causation, as investigated in the last chapter. For 
things are not known unless they are experienced as 
causes. But, as we have already seen, such an experience 
can be gained only in a feeling-full and voluntary inter- 
course with things. 

The Kinds of Knowledge. — In tracing the development 
of mental life we have already been made to recognize one 
important distinction in the kinds of knowledge. This 
distinction depends upon the relation in which the mental 
process of knowing stands to the object known. Hence 
the division into immediate cognition and mediate cogni- 
tion, or "knowledge of" and "knowledge about." But it 



312 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

has also been made clear that this distinction is one of 
degrees ; although when the difference in degrees passes 
beyond a certain not easily assignable limit, it becomes a 
difference in kind. Thus, in any very elaborate act of 
sense-perception, "knowledge of" the particular thing 
perceived and "knowledge about" other similar things 
would certainly be blended together. The same is true 
of all memory-knowledge of things absent or of distant 
events. Yet one would not hesitate to say that one's 
knowledge of one's native town is a different kind of 
knowledge from that which one has of Singapore, for 
example, — in case one has read about the latter place, 
but has never visited it. All this, however, has been 
sufficiently explained in treating of perception, memory, 
and conceptual thinking. 

There is a distinction in knowledges, as respects objects, 
which is of a quite different order from the foregoing. 
This is the distinction between knowledge of Things and 
knowledge of Self — a distinction which applies in a 
modified way to knowledge about Things and knowledge 
about Self. Such a "bi-partition " of all cognitions, as 
respects their objects, is itself a matter of development. 
The infant does not bring it with him into the world. 
For him, as yet, there is no Self and there are no things. 
Only as a living being, growing in acquaintance with 
himself, and in ever active and observant commerce with 
things, does he make, improve, and more emphatically 
validate this fundamental distinction. For the distinc- 
tion, when once made, is fundamental and quite unique; 
and it lies at the basis of all distinctions. Impair this 
distinction, and all distinctions are impaired. Destroy 
it, and all cognitions of every kind sink into an undis- 
cernible chaos of impressions, which are not to be spoken 
of either as functions of a Knower or as forms of know- 
ledge. As the distinction between Self and things fades 



KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND OF SELF 313 

away, all manner of distinctions fade away; knowledge 
itself is lost. 

We need, then, further to examine — 

The Grounds on which this Distinction is based. — The dis- 
tinction between the knowing Self and the things known 
cannot be made clearer than it is in itself; nor can the 
distinction be justified by giving grounds for it which lie 
outside of itself. This is true at least so far as its psy- 
chology is concerned. The psychologist can, however, 
note what factors or aspects of the conscious states are 
grasped together as belonging to the knowing Subject, 
the Self; and he can also note what other factors or aspects 
of the conscious states are grasped together as belonging 
to the objects known, the things that are regarded as 
external and extended in space. For this is what the 
process of " bi-partition " results in; — on the one side, 
a knower, and on the other side, the various things which 
he knows. 

Let us now recur to the point of view from which the 
psychologist must regard all the phenomena of his science 
(comp. pp. If. and 20 f.). They were all said to be phe- 
nomena of consciousness, — conscious states or processes, 
psychoses, forms of mental life,— as such. Therefore the 
psychological point of view was said to be subjective par 
excellence. But the study of the development of percep- 
tion, and of the establishment of an actual "bi-partition" 
of all the objects of cognition, compels us to regard some 
of these conscious states as preeminently objective. They 
are given to us, to investigate, whenever we begin to 
approach their psychology, as the already accomplished 
cognitions of things. 

Observation and reflection upon the dividing of all ob- 
jects of knowledge into these two main classes lead us to 
recognize the following grounds on which the work of 
dividing is done : (1) It is chiefly the visual and tactual 



314 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

sense-impressions, with the memories, imaginings, and 
thoughts referring to them, which determine the com- 
plexion of our knowledge of things. But (2) the other 
sense-impressions — -as of hearing, taste, and smell — be- 
come associated with those of the "first rank " of objectiv- 
ity, so that we know of and about things through these 
impressions also. (3) All these sense-impressions have 
different relations to the changes of feeling and of the 
conative consciousness from those sustained by that other 
kind of experiences which is organized into the knowledge 
of and about the Self. (4) These latter — the "stuff" 
out of which the cognition of Self is made — are not 
chiefly our sense-experiences at all, but our mental images, 
thoughts, feelings, and volitions. They, as activities 
which we perform, are the preferred aspects of experience 
that offer themselves to be grasped together in the appre- 
hension of Self, and to be subjected to reflection for the 
development of the conception of Self. (5) In all the 
growth of both kinds of knowledge we are studying pro- 
cesses which must, so far as the psychologist discerns, be 
considered as an active making of the distinction by the 
conscious Subject itself. The very knowledge which in- 
volves the distinction is the work of the Knower. Its 
formula is : "I know myself and I know the things, and 
that they are not myself." For psychology at least, what- 
ever metaphysics may hold, both Things and Self are given 
to consciousness as constructs of the active intellect upon a 
basis of differences in actual experience. 

It is difficult for the adult to believe how vague aud shifty is, 
originally, this " bi-partition " of experience into that with Self and 
that with Things. This is due not only to the obscure and feeble 
character of the first discriminations made, but also to the fact that 
feelings of strong, painful, or pleasurable tone shift themselves back 
and forth in their localization, and constantly change in respect of 
their relations of dependence upon the will. For example, the infant 
plunged into the bath that is too hot feels first the sensations of phys- 



KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND OF SELF 315 

ical shock accompanied by changes in visual and tactual perceptions 
which are calculated to result in knowledge of some external thing. 
Moreover, it cannot will away these sense-impressions of its own with- 
out changing its perceived relations to this external thing. But the 
arising and persistence of the painful feeling of being burned calls off 
attention to a phase of consciousness which is more truly its own. And 
this is calculated to stimulate a certain form of self-knowledge that 
has great practical importance. . . . Even in much of our adult life 
the distinction between Self and things is not consciously and sharply 
drawn. The same complex of sensations and feelings may at the 
present instant be either perceived as a hard-seated and sharp-backed 
chair ; or as a localized discomfort in the Self of the person occupying 
the chair. 

In general we may say: (1) The element of feeling tends to prepon- 
derate as familiarity and habit blur the outlines of the intellectual appre- 
hension of the object of knowledge. And (2) as the element of feeling 
increases, the distinction between the two classes of objects, things and self, 
is submerged, as it were. Thus in many forms of adult but relatively 
unthinking life, a return to the vague and shifty consciousness of the 
child takes place. The skilful player feels his violin as a part of 
himself, for the time being ; the singer or speaker does not regard his 
throat as apart from himself, until it seems " sore," " stiff," or other- 
wise an " objectified reluctant." 

It is not necessary to develop further the psychological 
doctrine of the knowledge of things. What has been said 
in the chapter on perception, when brought into connec- 
tion with what belongs to this chapter on the nature of 
cognition, will be quite sufficient. The whole subject 
requires, however, some more detailed consideration of 
the development of the knowledge of the Self. 

Development of Self-Consciousness. — One of the earliest 
things noted, (see p. 22 f.) about the elementary processes 
of the mind was this : Every conscious state, in order that 
it may come into existence in the stream of consciousness, 
involves a certain discriminating activity. Each state must 
somehow be separated off from the immediately contiguous 
portions of the stream and grasped together, in order to 
become one recognizable conscious state or mental process. 



316 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

The reasons — so far as they lie in the contents of con- 
sciousness — why some conscious states get regarded as 
my states, and others get regarded as the qualities of 
things, have already been briefly recorded. They have 
been seen to consist chiefly in the affective and conative 
factors which enter, in such different amounts and ways, 
into all the conscious processes. But so far as these rea- 
sons lie in the native ways of the behavior of active con- 
sciousness, in the so-called " laws " which define the 
original nature of mind, psychology can only accept them 
as ultimate and unanalyzable facts. 

From this point on, however, the development of self- 
consciousness is not a bit more mysterious than is the 
development of objective consciousness, — or perception 
as the "immediate awareness " of things. It is the same 
active intellect which is engaged in the acquisition of 
both kinds of knowledge. I know myself better, as I 
grow in my knowledge of things. I know things more 
fully, as I discern more accurately and completely the 
manifold relations in which my Self stands to things. 
The consciousness of Self and the perception of external ob- 
jects develop in a mutual dependence, and by exercise of the 
same intellective functions upon two discernibly different sorts 
of experience. We are no more warranted, then, in speak- 
ing of a special "faculty of self-consciousness," than we 
are in speaking of a special faculty of perceiving stones, 
trees, stars, and other things. All the faculties are en- 
gaged in, and pledged to, this process of bi-partition, 
which ends in the most fundamental of all distinctions, 
namely, the distinction between my Self and Things as 
other than myself. 

There are two opposite forms of the "psychologist's fallacy" 
which are current upon this subject. One of these virtually denies 
that self-consciousness is a development, and considers it rather as 
an original faculty given ready-made, as it were, to the human mind. 



KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND OF SELF 317 

Because the psychologist cannot put himself into the place of the 
infant, without carrying over his own self-conscious development, he 
attributes the same kind of a developed self-consciousness to the 
psychoses of the infant. But it might as correctly be held that 
because the adult cannot see a certain object through the microscope 
without becoming "immediately aware" of it as an amoeba or a 
diatom, therefore if the infant's eye were applied to the microscope, 
he too would have the same perceptive experience. 

The opposite fallacy consists in minimizing and reducing to a mere 
difference in degrees the entire adult distinction between Self and 
other things. But in doing this the psychologist forgets that he is 
cutting from under himself as a scientific observer, as well as from 
under all science, the ground which comprises all possible points of 
standing. The validity of this same distinction he virtually assumes 
in all his investigations; and to it they all compel him to return. 
Everything he has to say about " subjective " and " objective," about 
" normal " and " abnormal," about " psychoses as dependent upon 
environment," and " conscious states as due to external stimuli " or 
as "dependent upon cerebral conditions," implies this same distinc- 
tion. Whatever kind of metaphysics he may bring himself to espouse, 
as a scientific psychologist he stands firm only upon the basis of this 
assumed bi-partition of Self and things. 

Stages of Self-Consciousness. — Although self-conscious- 
ness, like all other forms of mental development, falls 
under the principle of continuity and proceeds, as a rule, 
with a tolerably smooth and uniform flow, it is possible 
to mark off epochs or stages in its career. These stages 
are distinguished by the predominating character of the 
conception of the Self. In the actual life of mind, how- 
ever, they continually mingle. And by no means all 
individuals attain to any degree of clearness or fixity in 
the higher forms of conception. That is to say : — The 
most metaphysical philosopher customarily conceives of 
himself in terms essentially the same as those to which 
the child is confined. But he can, and he often does, think 
out a conception of "the Self," for himself and for others, 
such as the child is incapable of framing; such, too, as the 
average adult has only in a confused and inchoate form. 



318 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Various numbers of Selves, or stages in the develop- 
ment of the conception of Self, have been distinguished 
by different psychologists. For our purposes it will be 
sufficient to notice the following three : (1) The sentient 
bodily Self; (2) the thinking, willing, and cognizing 
Self — the Knower and Doer; and (3) the metaphysical 
Self, or the unitary and really existent being which is 
conceived as continuing all the way between its own 
remembered conscious states. Each of these three con- 
ceptions demands a brief consideration; and, first, — 

The Sentient, Bodily Self. — It has already been suggested 
(comp. p. 314 f.) that the mixture of obscure bodily feel- 
ings — the sensations that are ill localized, confused, and 
that have a strong tone of pleasure-pain mixed with them 
— plays an important part in our work of dividing our- 
selves off from external things. The peculiarity of such 
feelings is this: in the work of " bi-partition " they may 
be assigned in either one of the two main directions. 
They may be considered as belonging to my Self — a sen- 
tient body — as acted upon by external things; or they 
may be considered as belonging to my feeling and conative 
Self as caused by the condition of my body. Either of 
these points of view may be taken by the adult; and he 
can readily pass, without confusion, from one to the other. 
But with the infant the former point of view is the one 
seized and most habitually held; it is the primitive, the 
natural, the more apprehensible, and the more fixed and 
constant. And what is true of the infant, is true in a 
modified way of the infantile man, — of the savage, of the 
hypnotic and the dreamer, of the unreflecting adult. It 
is the bodily Self, as all alive with feeling and movement, 
and as constantly used in the cognition of things, while at the 
same time sensitive to the changes effected in it by changing 
relations to things, which is known as marking the first stage 
in the development of the conception of Self. 



KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND OF SELF 319 

It has been well said that if the earliest form of the 
mental representation corresponding to the words, " I " 
"Ego," "Self," etc., could speak, it would say: " What 
is here-and-now, that am I." But for the child, "What- 
z's-here-and-now " — " that-which-I-am " ■ — ■ is what it can 
see, touch, and feel internally, of its own body. Ask it 
the question, " Where are you f " and it will point to the 
more sentient or accessible parts of its own body. Ask 
it the further question, " What are you?" or, "What do 
you mean when you say I? " and it can only repeat the 
significant gesture. 

This most primitive form of the conception of Self early 
undergoes modifications that are connected with the gen- 
eral intellectual development. Such modifications may 
be traced in two directions : (1) the conception becomes 
more highly differentiated; and (2) the conception be- 
comes subject to various accretions. The different por- 
tions and organs of the body, as they get separated off 
from each other, are more or less closely identified with 
their corresponding conscious states. Thus a child of five 
years, on being pressed to tell what she meant by the " I " 
that " loves papa," finally solved the puzzle to her satisfac- 
tion by saying: " Oh, iioav I know; it is my arms, because 
I hug him with them; and my lips, because I kiss him 
with them." Thus, too, we all speak of our selves as 
having a pain "in the head," or as seeing "with the eyes," 
and feeling "with the hand," etc. 

At the same time, the childish and savage, as well as 
the popular adult conception of the Self is modified and 
enlarged by a variety of accretions. Among these per- 
haps the most important is the name. This led Goethe 
to say that "the name is not worn as a dress but grows 
on to us layer upon layer, like our skin." And Volk- 
mann has remarked that certain savage tribes change the 
name of a sick child ; and that calling an animal by the 



320 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

same name seems to encourage an obscure development 
of self-consciousness. The clothes we wear are also an 
almost inseparable part of our feeling and perception of 
this sentient bodily Self. Lotze has remarked how our 
feeling and estimate of ourselves expands and contracts, 
and undergoes a variety of modifications, with the changes 
we make in our clothing. 

What is sometimes called the "social Self" really falls, 
in large measure, under the same stage in the develop- 
ment of the conception. Strictly speaking, there can be 
no such existence, and no conception answering to such 
an existence, as a social Self. The social self is my self as 
standing in a variety of relations to other selves. • This 
term, like all similar terms ("social consciousness," etc.), 
is figurative ; and unless understood as figurative, is a mis- 
nomer. It is this sentient bodily being, rather than the 
more purely spiritual or more strictly metaphysical Self, 
which "goes into" society, and which is conceived of in 
a social way. It is, therefore, the conception of it which 
is so profoundly modified, and almost broken up, by 
abrupt and extensive changes in the social and other 
allied forms of environment. 

Abnormal and even insane developments of the conception of Self 
often begin in the form of marked changes of experience with the 
sentient and active bodily organism. The limb that loses feeling and 
voluntary motion seems " dead to us " ; it is no longer a part of our 
here-and-now existence. We wake up with the consciousness of 
changes in certain feeling-full sensations which we call "feeling 
queer," or not "feeling a bit like" ourselves. But we ordinarily 
retain a good firm ground of standing in the recognized likeness of 
our physical and social surroundings, and in the memory of past 
thoughts, feelings, and deeds, which we recognitively attribute to our 
(same) selves. If these stand-points fail us, or become relatively very 
weak while the changes in the features of the bodily Self are relatively 
comprehensive, persistent, and strong, "the mind" — as is significantly 
said — " gives way." The total conception of Self becomes confused, 
disturbed, and more or less permanently modified. 



KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND OF SELF 321 

Examples of such aberration in the work of so-called self-conscious- 
ness are frequent enough among hypnotic subjects ; the insane asylums 
hold not a few afflicted in this way. Shakespeare illustrates the truth 
by the confusion which changes in the physical environment wrought 
upon the self-conception of his Christopher Sly. And Delbceuf tells 
the story of a poor cobbler of Liege, who having been captured by 
the monks while he lay in a drunken fit, shaved, made to suffer ton- 
sure, clothed in monk's garb, and surrounded by " the brethren " and 
treated as one of their number, could only say : " Go to the foot of 
the bridge, and see if Gilles the cobbler is in his shop; if he is not, I 
am he ; but if he is, may the devil get me if I know who I am." 

It should be noticed, however, that in almost all such cases, although 
the conception of " who-and-what-I-am " is profoundly changed, all 
conception of Self is by no means lost. " Here am I," is still the for- 
mula with which the active, feeling, and willing mind announces its 
self -known existence. And if you ask it, " What are you ? " the answer 
still is: "What is here and now, that am I." All this requires us to 
recognize an immense difference between a certain metamorphosis in the 
conception of Self, and a complete perversion or suppression of so-called 
natural self-consciousness. The latter amounts to no less than the com- 
plete destruction of all recognizable being for the Self. 

The Thinking, Willing, and Knowing Self. — Whatever 
may be the true scientific doctrine of the dependence upon 
the body of all conscious states, we are by no means always 
made aware in consciousness of this dependence. I may, 
indeed, be compelled to admit that when I think of myself, 
certain obscure bodily feelings about the region of the 
forehead or of the throat may be brought above the thresh- 
old of consciousness ; or that I cannot will to perform any 
particular deed without creating a discernible feeling of 
tension or of strain in the muscles innervated by the act of 
will. But I can regard myself merely as thinking or will- 
ing ; I can know myself solely in the aspect of a hnower. 
This feat is accomplished by the same developed activity 
of memory, imagination, and thought, which makes it pos- 
sible to regard the particular activities or common qualities 
of external things "by themselves," as it were. 

Whenever I reflectively attend to any conscious state 



322 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

of my own, I am compelled to an act of recognitive 
memory. The very focusing of attention upon the state, 
or process, causes it to be regarded as one portion of a 
stream of consciousness that is somehow comparable with, 
and capable of being assimilated to, other portions of the 
stream. If, however, it is regarded as a self-felt and self- 
willed process, — and it must be so regarded when I reflect 
upon it as a truly mental process, — the data are secured for 
the formation of a more spiritual conception of the Self. In 
the case of the child, this conception is, so to speak, " split 
off " from its experience with the total bodily Self. For 
example, if the child reflects upon the complex memory- 
picture of its own experience in moving a heavy chair, or 
in getting a heavy fall, part of this experience, even so 
far as it excludes the perception of the object moved or 
struck against, is more external and objective; part, how- 
ever, is more internal and subjective. It sees and feels 
its own limbs as in contact with an object external to the 
body ; but it feels what it cannot see, or touch, by directing 
attention to any external part of its own body. It is this 
unlocalized but self-felt activity which constitutes the germ of 
the conception of the spiritual Self. 

In the very act of voluntarily remembering, and in all 
the processes of voluntary attention and of striving to 
think out any problem set before the mind, this interior, 
unlocalized, but self-felt activity becomes relatively more 
prominent. A part of many such processes would, indeed, 
lead us to conclude that we remember, attend, and think, 
with the head, — in somewhat the same way as we see with 
the eyes and touch with the hand. As to the alleged scien- 
tific conclusion that such processes are performed in, or 
with, the brain, the stream of consciousness, as such, gives 
us not the slightest data. We do not, upon reflecting 
over our conscious states, so much as get the hint that 
there is any brain. But, on the contrary, with all the more 



KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND OP SELF 323 

objective factors of such processes, however faint and un- 
obtrusive and even impossible to detect they may be, this 
same "self-felt activity" is the constant as well as the 
prominent thing discovered by reflection. 

It is, then, through the analytic and generalizing work 
of the mind upon its own growing experience that the 
conception of a spiritual Self is framed. This conception 
needs no other form of a mental process, no added faculty, 
in order to account for its own development. It should 
be noted, however, that the formation of this conception, 
like the formation of all conceptions, results from a series 
of judgments ; and judgment is an accomplished synthesis, 
an achieved act of relating. This leads us to emphasize 
the following truths: (1) It is as a self -active, thinking, 
and feeling being that I know myself as most clearly differ- 
enced from all external things, — including the visible and 
tangible parts of my own body ; and (2) developed self-con- 
sciousness involves the judgment that, especially in certain of 
its processes, subject and object are related as a being is re- 
lated to one of its many states. 

We may raise the question, why it is that the lower animals appear 
to have no conception of Self comparable to that of the lowest orders 
of men ; and why we do not incline to consider them as actually being 
selves, after the pattern of human selfhood. The answer to this ques- 
tion must refer to the whole range of the differences between the 
mental life of man and that of the other animals. It is, then, an 
altogether unjustifiable exaggeration in Lotze to claim that a crushed 
worm, writhing in pain, can both make and attach value to the dis- 
tinction between itself and the rest of the world, as the most intelli- 
gent angel, did it lack feeling, could not. For there is not necessarily 
the slightest germ of self-consciousness in mere " writhing in pain." 
And although human self-knowledge implies feeling, we cannot argue 
that no-intelligence could make this fundamental distinction unless it 
were under the stimulus of pleasure-pains. Besides, " making the dis- 
tinction " and " attaching value to it " are two quite different things ; 
it involves much more than a capacity for pleasure-pains, to be able 
to attach a peculiar value to the Self. 



324 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

The Metaphysical Conception of Self. — That men come to 
believe in their minds, or spiritual selves, as real beings, 
which have a unity of their own, and some sort of a per- 
manent existence in time, is no more mysterious than that 
they come to believe in the reality of things. It is, in- 
deed, even less mysterious. Regarded from the purely 
psychological point of view, and therefore considered 
simply as a conscious process, the fact is this : In one and 
the same act the mind makes itself the object of its self- 
knowledge and believes in the real being of that which it 
thus makes its own object. 

If, however, we ask for the details of this conception of 
the Self as a real being, we find the greatest variety in 
different individual cases. This variety is, indeed, great 
enough to answer to the separate experience of every indi- 
vidual mind that has framed any such conception. And 
why should not the variety be thus great? For the con- 
ception is in every case framed, though with a common 
conviction, yet upon the basis of a special experience. 
Such variation is dependent, besides the variations in the 
individual experiences, chiefly upon two things : (1) the 
degree of development which has been attained in so-called 
abstract or conceptual thinking. To conceive of my Self 
as a unitary and real being, possibly separable from all 
connection with a bodily organism, is confessedly a highly 
abstract and theoretical affair. The precise framing of 
this conception is, then, also dependent upon: (2) a 
variety of allied judgments and opinions of a mixed per- 
sonal, social, ethical, and theological character. 

All this, for its further analysis, testing, and theoretical 
unfolding, psychology must turn over to the philosophy of 
mind. 

There is, however, one point which is of the utmost 
importance for the descriptive history and the psycho- 
logical theory of all those mental processes that are called 



KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND OF SELF 325 

"knowledge." It shall be briefly touched upon as sum- 
marized in the term — 

Belief in Reality. — That there is some sort of a " trans- 
subjective reference " in every finished process of know- 
ledge, no man of so-called " common-sense " would think of 
denying. And even few psychologists have the hardihood 
to deny that a thorough analysis of knowledge inevitably 
comes upon this fact. These few can only put their denial 
into the form of an asseveration which is itself a confes- 
sion of the fact, and so self-contradictory and absurd. 
The character of this trans-subjective reference, which is 
essential to the very character of every process of know- 
ing, has been variously described. The points emphasized 
by all the descriptions correspond to certain factors in our 
common experience of knowledge. They cannot be alto- 
gether appropriately collected under any one term. But 
perhaps the phrase " Belief in Reality " is the best single 
term. 

As Sully has said: "Psychology requires a single term to denote 
all varieties of assurance from mere conjecture up to reasoned cer- 
tainty, and the word 'belief,' in English psychology at least, has come 
to be used in this seuse." In this meaning of the word, all cognition 
involves and, in the last analysis, rests upon, belief. It is this ele- 
ment of certainty which, in some sort, submits itself to reasoning in 
order to become intelligent and self-conscious, and thus brings know- 
ledge and reality into correlation with each other. Many writers — 
Hume, Bagehot, and James, for example — consider this belief as 
being more of the nature of a feeling. 

In the study of the development of knowledge — both 
that of things and that of the Self — we are led to notice 
the following truths : (1) All intense and enduring experi- 
ences tend to call out and to strengthen that conviction of 
the reality of the object which characterizes all knowledge. 
As an object of opinion, or of mere image-making or think- 
ing faculty, my psychosis has not as yet an existence af- 
firmed for it " outside of " the mental process. But if my 



326 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

experience with the object is intense and enduring, the 
conviction that the existence of the object is independent 
of this experience, tends to frame itself in consciousness. 
(2) This conviction is justified and made rational, when it 
attaches itself to a judgment that reposes on recognized 
grounds. I believe that particular thing to be real, that 
particular event to be actual, because its existence has been 
made the subject of a judging process which can recall 
a reason why. In cases of so-called "immediate know- 
ledge," this "reason why" is because I have seen, felt, 
heard, etc., in an attentive and voluntary way. In cases 
of mediate or indirect knowledge, I find my "reason why" 
in some other person's testimony, or in some belief or 
principle which I have adopted, or in some law of nature 
or of mind which I know to be true. (3) This belief in 
reality appears in the development of mental life, at first, 
without any recognition of its own existence or of the end 
it serves. It is not the special possession of any indi- 
vidual ; it cannot be explained as the result of any peculiar 
course in development. It belongs, by its nature, to every 
body. Of course, ive all believe in things as existing outside 
of our own minds. Such a belief is an inseparable part of 
our knowledge of both ourselves and of things. (4) Inas- 
much as knowledge has been seen to involve all our facul- 
ties of intellection, feeling, and will, it is not strange that 
the belief which enters into the constitution of knowledge 
should itself be regarded in connection with all these 
faculties. Thus it is sometimes spoken of as a sort of 
" intuiting," or positing, or affirming of reality, and some- 
times as a " feeling-sure," or " emotion of conviction," 
having respect to reality. We can scarcely too often call 
attention to the important truth that this belief is born in 
the experience we have when our wills are inhibited by 
things which " will not " as we will. 

But here again we must hand the further discussion of 



KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS AND OF SELF 327 

this topic over to philosophy with the remark that a scien- 
tific psychology seems to find a sort of metaphysical faith as 
an inseparable element in the existence and development of 
all human knowledge. The origin and development of this 
faith have been described, so far as psychology can, in 
giving the analysis and descriptive history of both kinds 
of the one knowing process. 

[For a further and more philosophical discussion of this subject, 
see especially the author's Philosophy of Knowledge and Philosophy 
of Mind. Comp. also James : The Principles of Psychology, II, xxi ; 
Sully : Illusions ; and The Human Mind, I, p. 483 f. ; Taine : De 
L'intelligence, I, ii, chap. 1; Paulhan : L'Activite mentale, p. 297 f . ; 
Lazarus : Das Leben d. Seele, ii, p. 41 f.] 



CHAPTER XVI 

EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS 

The development of the life of feeling proceeds upon 
the basis of a great variety of relations to our intellectual 
development. The bewildering complexity at which it 
thus arrives, therefore, results largely from the modifica- 
tions which this intellectual development introduces into 
the simpler and more fundamental forms of feeling. The 
characteristics imparted the physiological conditions of 
the emotional aspect of the stream of consciousness 
cannot, however, be left out of account. With all these 
intellectual and bodily effects fully in view, we may 
announce the general principle controlling the formation 
of our complex feelings, as follows : Substantially the same 
conscious state, so far as distinctions of affective quality 
are concerned, may be regarded either simply as a feeling, 
or as an emotion, or a passion, or a sentiment. 

Variables which Condition the Development of Feeling. — 
There are four principal classes of conditions on which 
the character of the more complex feelings depends. Of 
these (1) the varying intensity of the primitive forms of 
feeling which enter into combination is very important. 
This changing quantitative factor, perhaps, concerns pri- 
marily the pleasure-pain tone of the various feelings ; but 
it is not confined to this characteristic. For example, one 
may properly speak of one's self as being " more or less " 
surprised, expectant, curious, etc., as well as more or less 
"painfully" or "agreeably" surprised, expectant, curious, 
etc. (2) In close dependence upon the variable of intensity 
is another variable which may be spoken of as the " bodily 
328 



EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS 329 

resonance.''' The physiological conditions of all feeling 
have already been seen (p. 91 f.) to provide for such a fac- 
tor. The overflow or " surplusage" of that cerebral excite- 
ment which goes with all intense feeling is accompanied 
by important changes, not only in the centres of the brain, 
but in the various systems of the bodily organs — vaso- 
motor, respiratory, muscular, digestive — to the remotest 
parts of the body. And the feeling of these changes 
blends with, and greatly modifies, the original feeling. 
In somewhat similar manner (3) the movements of feel- 
ing are accompanied by changes in the trains of the asso- 
ciated ideas and of the sequent thoughts ; these changes 
are themselves, in turn, felt so as profoundly to modify 
the original affective conscious states. Ideation and 
thinking, as "appreciated" (see p. 95 f.) in the formation 
of the complex feelings, provide, then, a third class of 
variables. And, finally, (4) the proportions in which the 
simpler feelings enter into the more complex feelings 
are variable ; the result of this variation of proportion 
is a "conflict," and a "blending," or a new "mixture," 
or a " prevalence " of certain factors over the others. 

The following questions, then, may be asked concern- 
ing any very complex and developed form of feeling : In 
what proportions, and with what intensities, do the sim- 
pler feelings enter into the compound? And what are 
the factors of the compound emotion or sentiment, which 
are. due either to the resulting bodily disturbance, or to 
the " upsetting " of the mind ? Thus, for example, a 
special experience of feeling might be described as being 
very angry and slightly afraid, but not conscious at all of 
losing control over one's ideas, and suffering only a, slight 
conscious change in the condition of the physical organism. 

If such a " state " of mind as the foregoing be carefully analyzed, 
it will be found that two of the more fundamental natural emotions 
(anger and fear) enter into it, in varying proportions (as indicated 



330 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

by the words "very" and "slightly"). But on account of an acquired 
habit of self-control, or for some other reason, the effects provided for 
under the second and third class of variables are not prominent in 
consciousness. No careful observer, however, would fail to find them 
existing to some extent, and so modifying the complex state of mind. 

More Primitive Kinds of Feeling. — There are forms of 
feeling in which all men share ; and which we have, there- 
fore, to reckon with in all our social intercourse with our 
fellows. Some of these belong to man in common with 
the lower animals. They have an important biological 
significance ; they are safe-guards, encitements, and guides 
to the development of the individual and of the species. 
At the same time, there is among men the greatest range 
of individuality in the " variables " just referred to ; and 
all these primitive forms of feeling are capable of education 
and of refinement so as to make them a most important 
and splendid part in the texture of the well-developed man. 

For example, in two persons of different dispositions 
and culture, natural anger may develop into quite dif- 
ferent forms of feeling ; it may become in one a blinding 
animal emotion, and in the other, a fine sentiment of per- 
sonal worthiness and of the value of justice. Woman's 
jealousy is different from man's ; and one woman differs 
from another woman in respect of her jealousy. In his 
formation of the more complex kinds of feeling, the emo- 
tions and sentiments, man shows his far-reaching supe- 
riority to the lower animals. What remains relatively 
simple, direct, and frankly physical, in their case, shows 
in his case a capacity for becoming the source of all that 
is most beautiful in art, most admirable in conduct, and 
most holy in religion. It is in his superior equipment of 
emotions and sentiments, quite as much as in his larger 
power of thought, that his higher ability for artistic, 
moral, and religious — and even for scientific and philo- 
sophical — development consists. 



EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS 331 

Among the principal kinds of " native " feeling, on the 
basis of which the complex emotions and sentiments are 
formed, the following eight may be mentioned : Anger, 
Fear, Grief, Joy, Astonishment, Curiosity, Jealousy, Sym- 
pathy. These are all " human," not because they are not 
shared in by the lower animals, but rather because they 
belong to all men in such manner that their development 
is characteristic of the individual man, — in fact, largely 
determinative of the individual's character. They are 
all observable in the infant, at a very early stage of its 
development. The proportions, particular intensities, and 
the amounts of bodily and psychical disturbance, with 
which they manifest themselves, constitute largely what 
we are accustomed to call the " disposition " of every 
child. The way they get themselves woven into the 
habitual psychoses determines what we later call the 
man's character. They depend, with different degrees 
of closeness, upon the development of the life of ideation 
and thought. Thus, curiosity, jealousy, and sympathy 
require more " advanced ideas " than do anger, fear, joy, 
and grief. 

It is neither necessary nor possible, in so brief a treatment of psy- 
chology, to enter upon the detailed description of these primitive 
kinds of human affective consciousness. In the vigorous infant, 
intense and painful sensations, especially when they are accompanied 
by impeding his free movements, naturally excite anger. Holding 
tightly the limb he wishes to move arouses in him the same charac- 
teristic reaction with which the young serpent or crocodile responds 
to the stick that is set in its way. Only the vaguest kind of perceptions 
are necessary to this emotion. So, too, do children show "natural 
fear" — that is, fear of objects of which they have had no previous 
experience to account for such fear. Sigismund tells of a little girl 
who showed fear of cats as early as the fourteenth week of life. 

Curiosity, even as a semi-intellectual affair, belongs to very young- 
children generally. Its roots seem to be in a sort of psychical rest- 
lessness, an impulsive reaching out for the pleasure of psychical 
activity. Definite intellectual curiosity is a later and more complex 



332 DESCKIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

affair. But it is difficult to account for the development of the later 
form without recognizing this more primitive feeling of curiosity. 
What is sometimes called ''natural" or "animal" sympathy can 
scarcely be treated as any one distinct form of feeling. Its earliest 
appearance is connected with the principle of imitation (comp. p. 121), 
and takes the form of conforming one's own affective consciousness to 
that apparent in the social environment. Thus the babe that cries 
when it sees or hears its mother crying, really feels grief (of the sym- 
pathetic sort); and the school-boy who gets mad simply "because the 
rest do," is no less genuinely mad. It is in such " sympathetic " out- 
bursts or enticements of feeling that the foundations of social order 
are largely laid. All through life — 

" Fellowship in woe doth woe assuage, 
As palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage." 

Distinction of Emotions and Sentiments. — There is no 
fixed distinction between the two kinds into which the 
heading of this chapter divides the more complex forms 
of feeling. As has already been said (p. 328), the prin- 
ciple of affective development affirms that by modifying 
the variables the same feeling may reach its own emo- 
tional or sentimental stage : or it may be transformed 
into a quite new conflict or mixture of feelings. Thus 
the affection which characterizes the sexual relation may 
be an overwhelming emotion or passion at one time, an 
almost toneless feeling at another time, and, again, a 
vague and weak or a clear and strong sentiment. And 
between the more abrupt transitions an almost indefinite 
variety of stages may be experienced. 

It may be said in a general way, however, that emotions 
are distinguished from sentiments by the following two 
characteristics : (1) Emotions include a greater intensity 
of feeling and consequent amount of "bodily resonance" 
and of the consciousness of disturbance of the ideas and 
thoughts ; but (2) sentiments depend upon an increased 
activity of the developed life of imagination and thought, 
with a relative absence of the consciousness of " bodily 



NATURE OF THE EMOTIONS 333 

resonance " and disturbance of the ideas. But, as has 
already been indicated, any form of feeling may pass from 
sentiment to emotion, or the reverse. Thus, the senti- 
mental queen of Prussia is said to have anticipated death 
with the emotion of joy; because she expected now to 
learn what Leibnitz had been unable to tell her. And 
a certain French chemist felt such an emotion of pleasure 
in one of his discoveries as to dance about his laboratory 
in the effort to give it vent. 

Specific Characteristics of an Emotion. — When any form 
of feeling rises suddenly, or by a series of " summations," to 
a high pitch of intensity, the internal and external organs 
of the body feel the influence of an unusual excitement. 
Rather it would be more correct to say that these organs 
are thrown into an unusual state of excitement ; and that 
we feel them thus excited. At the same time, as a normal 
result of the increased but less firmly associated excite- 
ment of the centres of the brain, the train of ideas and 
thoughts is disturbed ; and we feel this disturbance. The 
stream of consciousness "runs troubled" with these in- 
gredients due to excessive and not well coordinated ex- 
ternal and cerebral excitement. Its current is emotional. 
We, considered as respects our experience of feeling, are 
in an emotional state. These three factors, then, enter 
into the creation of every emotion : (1) conscious psychi- 
cal intensity, (2) felt "bodily resonance," (3) felt disso- 
ciation of the ideas and thoughts. 

Of the first of these three factors it is necessary only 
to say that, in so far as the increased psychic energy 
which belongs to an emotional state of consciousness is 
not under the control of will, we appear to ourselves to 
be " suffering from the emotion " rather than actively 
engaged in bringing about the emotion. Our emotions 
master us; but when we have mastered them, they cease 
thereby to be so much " emotions." 



334 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

"Bodily Resonance'' of all Emotions. — This chief char- 
acteristic of all markedly emotional experiences demands 
further explanation. We can by no means accept a some- 
what widely current theory, which regards the emotion 
as nothing but "the feeling of" the modifications (tension, 
pressure, strain) which have already taken place in the 
organs external to the brain. Thus we should have to 
say : I am very mad, because I sense the clenching of the 
fists, the setting together of jaws, the " goose-pimples " on 
the skin, the suppressed breathing, quickened circulation, 
etc. ; and this " feeling of " the condition of these bodily 
organs is all there is of the emotion. This view is, how- 
ever, even physiologically considered a very inadequate 
and indefensible hypothesis. It neglects the fundamen- 
tal fact that the primary correlate of all our life of feeling 
seems to be just this " surplusage " of unorganized cerebral 
excitement ; and that the stream of consciousness is from 
the first determined by the centrally originated changes 
in the brain-centres (the life and automatic activity of the 
brain-mass) as truly as it is also determined by modifica- 
tions of these centres which originate in the organs of 
sense. The so-called " physiological " theory of the emo- 
tions is, then, poor physiology: For, the bodily basis of the 
emotions, as of all our feelings, is no mere reflection in the 
brain of the state of the external organs ; it is also laid in 
the brain considered as the enciter and controller of these 
external organs. 

What takes place in the development of any particular 
emotional state is not difficult to trace in terms of gen- 
eral nerve-physiology. The emotion, physiologically de- 
scribed, begins as a sort of nerve-storm, which is originally 
confined to some comparatively limited area of the brain. 
Increasing in intensity, however, it spreads over all the 
connected areas of the brain and passes down the various 
outgoing nerve-tracts to the different groups of striated 



NATURE OF THE EMOTIONS 335 

muscles, and to the vascular, secretive, and respiratory 
organs. This sudden and intense discharge of nervous 
energy into these organs throws them into a condition of 
unwonted excitement. This excitement starts the sensory 
nerve-commotions from these organs to pour in upon the 
already much disturbed areas of the brain, and to modify 
and increase their disturbance. The total resulting dis- 
turbance may be spoken of as the " bodily resonance " or 
" organic reverberation " of the emotion. The " feeling 
of " it is what gives its more distinctly emotional charac- 
ter to the original feeling. 

Psychologically considered, the emotions are then ex- 
plained by noticing the explanation of the changes in 
consciousness which our feelings undergo as they rise to 
the emotional stage. The common thing about them all 
is the " appreciation " in consciousness — although it is a 
confused and unanalyzed thing, as becomes the very nature 
of an emotion — of this "bodily resonance." For an es- 
sential part of the content of every emotion is that complex 
feeling which depends upon intense and widely diffused 
cerebral agitation, whether centrally initiated or due to the 
secondary changes in the organs external to the brain. 

The specific characteristics of the different emotions, so 
far as these depend upon the "bodily resonance" peculiar 
to each of them, vary considerably in details ; and yet 
they have many features in common. That no consider- 
able increase in the amount of cerebral excitement can 
take place without profoundly modifying the action of all 
the other organs of the body is a psycho-physical principle 
of the first rank. Among the organs whose action is 
most quickly and profoundly modified in this way are the 
following : (1) the rhythm and intensity of the heart- 
beat and the action of the whole vaso-motor apparatus ; 
(2) the respiratory mechanism including epiglottis and 
muscles of the diaphragm ; (3) the muscles of the face 



336 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

and eyes which are so expressive of the various emotions ; 
and (4) the muscles which support and control the limbs. 
Hence (1) the rapid and irregular or suspended beating 
of the heart, the flushing and chilling of capillary circula- 
tion, and the changes in the texture of the skin ; hence 
(2) the quickened breathing or tendency to " catch the 
breath," the feeling of suffocation, and the various modi- 
fications of respiration, such as sobbing, gasping, etc. ; as 
well as (3) the glowering of eyes, or the setting of the 
teeth, the smiling or " haw -hawing," the open eye of joy, 
the drooping lid of grief"; and, finally, (4) the defensive 
or offensive gestures and postures, or the flabby and 
trembling arms and legs. The effect of emotional excite- 
ment on the voice, and on the vague movements or secre- 
tory functions of the viscera, is also noteworthy. 

It is unnecessaiy to enter into the details of the different emotional 
states ; or to show how the varying characters of the " bodily reso- 
nance " produce the characteristic differences in the emotions them- 
selves. Biology throws some light on these phenomena; when, for 
example, it calls attention to the defensive attitude into which the 
organs are thrown by the emotion of anger, or the tendency to escape 
by flight which fear induces. We may study the same phenomena 
in the pantomime of actors ; or, better still, in the behavior of the 
hypnotic and the insane. 

An interesting modification of experience takes place in the case of 
emotions which are very intense but are controlled or concealed. A 
sort of hidden and consuming fire seems to be burning in the veins, 
muscles, heart, and bowels of the one who is "nursing" anger, fear, 
grief, hatred, or joy. In the long run the slow-burning conflagration 
may eat up as much of tissue and destroy as much of psychical energy 
in the modern man as did the more violent outbreaks of these same 
emotions in his savage ancestors. 

Emotional Disturbance of the Ideas. — From the points of 
view of physiology and psychology alike a " disordered 
brain" unfits one for thinking. But, physiologically con- 
sidered, an intense uncontrolled emotion is a disordered 
brain. In this condition of cerebral excitement the regu- 



NATURE OF THE EMOTIONS 337 

lar interconnected activity of the centres of the brain 
through the association-tracts is temporarily impaired or 
broken up. On the side of consciousness, this disorder 
may be considered as a relative or almost complete " disso- 
ciation of the ideas." Such a state of dissociation has to 
do (1) with the time-rate of the ideas, (2) with the char- 
acter and order of their connection, and (3) with their 
relation to the subject's conative and discriminating con- 
sciousness. 

In strongly emotional states of consciousness, there 
may be either an unregulated and increased rapidity in 
the succession of the ideas (a "hurly-burly" of our 
thoughts) ; or an almost complete suspension of the 
train of association. Thus extreme anger, grief, hatred, 
or fear, tend to lose all their ideational differences ; con- 
sciousness tends to become a blur of blind feeling. All 
thoughts seem to fuse under the white heat of passion, 
somewhat as all the hues of the spectrum, under the most 
intense light, become whitish. It is also notable that the 
strangest and most unaccountable suggestions spring up 
in consciousness, when strong emotions are having their 
sway. Especially is the rational and " objective " con- 
nection of the ideas and judgments interrupted. That 
control of the thoughts and accurate discriminations of 
objects are difficult, or impossible, in states of emotional 
excitement, is a commonplace observation. 

But considered as a form of feeling, the peculiarity of 
an emotion is that it is itself colored by those changes in 
the ideation-' and thought- processes which it has itself 
produced. The very feeling which produces the disturbance 
of ideation and thought is destined in turn to feel this dis- 
turbance. The " feeling of " the changes already occur- 
ring in the associated ideas — the " feeling of " the disso- 
ciation — becomes an important factor in the character 
peculiar to all emotions. 



666 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

This subject should not be passed by without noticing the very- 
great differences which different persons exhibit in the way they 
" bear," or " carry," the emotions common to them all. Some 
forms of feeling may be said, within not easily assignable limits, to 
favor by their increased intensity the more effective exercise of the 
intellectual functions. Emotions of pride, love of approbation, etc., 
often act in this way. It has been reported of more than one great 
orator that, when angered by opposition or even insult, he had the 
best use of his powers. Other emotions, such as shame, fear, anxiety, 
ennui, regularly depress the intellectual powers. Yet so great is the 
" rallying " energy of some men that they successfully react upon 
almost any form of intense excitement, and bring it under control 
for the better accomplishment of their chosen purposes. Such men 
may be choking with grief, and, therefore, speak or write so as the 
better to picture the reasons for this emotion in themselves and in 
others. It is the controlled display of emotion which excites corre- 
sponding emotion in others. 

In genei'al, there seems to be no established principle to connect 
the characteristic strength of an individual's feelings with the bene- 
ficial or injurious effect upon his intellectual activities. For some, 
the emotions are a paralysis. For others, what Balzac makes Louis 
Lambert say is true : " Anger, like all f>ur passionate expressions, is 
a current of human force acting electrically." And, "passions are 
either defects or virtues in the highest power." 

Conflict of Emotions. — The feelings, when they reach an 
emotional stage, may come into " conflict " and either 
continue conflicting, or " prevail " over one another; or 
they may blend in some new and more complex form of 
feeling. In this regard, our experience with our emotions 
somewhat resembles that with our color sensations. Thus 
A may find himself now in an attitude rather of fear, and 
again rather of love, toward B ; at still another time, he 
may scarcely know whether his feeling is more of love or 
more of fear. The result of such transient conflicts may 
come in time to be a predominating emotion either of fear, 
or of love ; or else it may best be described as a sort of 
reverential affection or affectionate reverence. 

Interesting and varied but not very tangible relations 



NATURE OF THE SENTIMENTS 339 

seem to exist among the different main kinds of human 
emotion. Thus the passage from one to another is made 
more probable and more easy, or more improbable and 
more difficult. From pity, grief, or a sort of fear, to 
love, for the same object is a frequent and comparatively 
smooth transition. And love itself may be broken up 
into a number of classes by " admixture " with either of 
these and with many other forms of feeling. The ten- 
dency of men to rebound from one emotion, especially 
when it is excessive, to its opposite, is also psychologi- 
cally noteworthy. 

Where the passage from one marked condition of emo- 
tional excitement to its opposite is sudden and abrupt, 
the later of the two emotions is enhanced by the contrast. 
This effect is doubtless partly a result of conscious mem- 
ory, but it is also partly a result of the very contrast, 
physiologically and psychologically considered. 

" For if of joy, being altogether wanting, 
It doth remember me the more of sorrow ; 
Or if of grief, being altogether had, 
It adds more sorrow to my want of joy." 

Here, also, we may notice what Plato, in the Phsedo, 
calls "an unaccustomed mixture of delight and sor- 
row " ; and also the state of mind " which the most 
melancholy of all writers called the joy of grief." 

Nature of the Sentiments. — It has already (p. 332) been 
said that those forms of complex feeling which are called 
" sentiments " are more distinctively " spiritual " than are 
the emotions. Indeed, of all our conscious states, con- 
sidered feeling-wise, these are most thought of as belong- 
ing purely to the abstract and highly generalized concep- 
tion of the Self. On the contrary, they have least of the 
marks of that " bodily resonance " which is so charac- 
teristic of emotional stages of feeling. Moreover, the 
objects which call forth our sentimental consciousness 



340 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

are many of them of a highly idealized character. Senti- 
ments attach themselves to our ideals, — of things, of per- 
sons, of relations, etc., — to what we imagine and think 
ought to be rather than to what we know actually is. 

It would be a mistake, however, to think that all in- 
fluence from bodily conditions is wanting to the senti- 
ments of men ; or that the " feeling of " these conditions 
has nothing to do with the characteristic content of the 
different kinds of sentiment. For, it has also already been 
shown that the difference between the sentiments and the 
emotions is largely relative ; and that, if we increase 
greatly the intensity of any of our complex feelings, no 
matter how refined intellectually and how much idealized 
the objects calling them forth may be, they tend to become 
emotional in character. 

The specific characters of the different sentiments, as 
they depend partly upon the feeling of bodily conditions, 
will become clearer as we consider separately — 

The Different Kinds of Sentiment. — The character of the 
mental operations and objects in connection with which 
our sentimental consciousness is modified, serves very 
well to classify the sentiments. In this way we may 
recognize three classes : (1) the Intellectual, (2) the 
iEsthetical, and (3) the Ethical. Other classes, as for 
example the "religious sentiments," might, perhaps, be 
added. But the so-called religious sentiments appear to 
be exceedingly complex and shifty forms of feeling, which 
combine elements from all three of the foregoing forms. 
And it was implied in treating of those forms of primitive 
feeling which have so largely an emotional development, 
that some of them are fitted to become mental attitudes 
toward the object of religious faith. Thus, we hear of a 
"fear of God," a "jealousy for Jehovah," a "joy in the 
Divine presence," etc. All this leads us back to the origi- 
nal point of view for the treatment of the whole sub- 



INTELLECTUAL SENTIMENTS 341 

ject ; we are reminded again that " substantially the same 
conscious state, so far as distinctions of affective quality 
are concerned, may be regarded either simply as a feeling, 
or as an emotion, or a passion, or a sentiment." Each of 
the three kinds of sentiments just distinguished, however, 
requires a brief separate treatment. 

Intellectual Sentiments. — Of complex feeling, which 
usually has an unobtrusive "bodily resonance" and which 
is called out in connection with intellectual ideals, two 
kinds may be recognized: (1) There are certain senti- 
ments which serve to give impulse and excitement to the 
intellectual processes ; and (2) There are other senti- 
ments which are rather the accompaniments and guides of 
the intellectual processes. 

Among the first of these two classes is prominent that 
complex attitude of affection toward knowledge and truth 
which is sometimes called " desire " (of knowledge), or 
"love" (of truth), or "sentiment" (of the value of sci- 
ence or of truth). That lower form of animal restless- 
ness, which develops in gratified curiosity, and grows 
more distinctively " intellectual " with all the growth of 
mind, has already been noticed. In its further and 
highest development this complex attitude takes several 
different directions. The imagination may construct a 
picture which seems to comprise all that is worth while 
in all the particular truths gained by our actual ex- 
perience, and by all possible experience. This fiction of 
the imagination is then called, "the truth." Now, of 
course, there 'really is no one all-inclusive truth ; and we 
have no reason in the least to suspect that any one logical 
judgment, or system of judgments, begins to comprise all 
manner of separate truths. But the mind falls in love 
with this intellectual ideal, so lofty and so fine is its own 
construction. If it falls violently in love with this its 
ideal, the mind may be said to have a " passion for truth." 



342 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

In a few cases, this passion becomes so absorbing as really 
to work havoc with mental development by suppression 
or extinction of equally noble and fine forms of senti- 
ment. Thus Empedocles became " a living man no more : 
Nothing but a devouring flame of thought, but a naked, 
eternally restless mind." Fortunately, however, this feel- 
ing often remains a milder sentiment appreciative of the 
value of different truths, in accordance with their relation 
to the welfare of the souls of men. 

In considering the second class of intellectual senti- 
ments it is necessary to recur to a principle stated some 
time ago (see p. 95 f.) : All the processes of perception, 
memory, imagination, and thinking, have their peculiar 
accompaniments of feeling. In not a few cases these sen- 
timents do important service in guiding aright the intel- 
lectual processes themselves. In others this service is 
not obvious ; but the feeling aspect of the conscious state 
seems quite as essential a part of the total state as does 
the process of ideation or of thought. 

There is no doubt that logical thinking and correct con- 
clusion are almost as much a matter of fitting sentiment 
as of conscious appreciation of clearly recognized grounds. 
The feeling of hesitation or uneasiness with which one 
makes a doubtful statement, when interested in having it 
true, is of significance here. It seems, in the first place, 
to exhibit the part which the consciousness of the bodily 
action and condition plays in even our most purely intel- 
lectual sentiments. To " lay down " the coveted proposi- 
tion with tongue, or fist, or pen, and to feel the fact of 
laying it down, enforces one's mental confidence in the 
truth of the proposition. But if one cannot lay down, 
with a fair amount of confidence, that particular proposi- 
tion, the " feeling of " the bodily hesitancy, of the lack of 
firm muscles, itself throws doubt over the proposition. 
It is well known that liars ordinarily find it convenient 



INTELLECTUAL SENTIMENTS 343 

to bolster themselves up by repeated asseveration, with 
fist and foot, as well as organs of speech. 

When any new and unexpected judgment is proposed 
for the mind's acceptance, it inevitably meets with a cer- 
tain favorable or unfavorable attitude of feeling toward 
it, on the mind's part. No intellect ever works, as Mr. 
Huxley thought all intellects should work, — namely, as 
a "cold, logical engine." The way the proposition feels 
its own fitness with the established principles, beliefs, ten- 
dencies, and ruling sentiments of the mental life deter- 
mines, in most instances, its acceptance or rejection. Is 
that white-sheeted form I see in my room on waking at 
night, a real ghost or an illusion due to the way the moon- 
light falls on the curtain? The truth of perception for 
me will depend upon whether I believe in ghosts, or not. 

It should not be thought, however, that this influence 
of feeling has to do only with perceptions of, and judg- 
ments about, ghosts and similar things. In the words of 
one of the most distinguished scholars of the day : " If 
you wish to get the exact truth of fact from an expert, 
you must never ask but one expert." For it is probably 
the feelings, far more and far oftener than strict logical con- 
clusiveness, which settles for the time being what the truth 
must be held to be. And, indeed, it is questionable whether 
men have any more ultimate test of truth than the senti- 
ment or emotion of " conviction " which is itself rendered 
firm when any proposition makes them feel its fitness with 
the total character of their existing experience. 

This so-called " feeling of fitness " is, indeed, itself 
exceedingly complex. It often includes the struggle or 
blending of surprise, expectation, feeling of similarity or of 
difference. The emotions and sentiments corresponding 
to the words anger, hatred, love, fear, admiration, and 
other terms of more distinctly resthetical and ethical char- 
acter, also take part in our total attitude of mind toward 



344 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

the truth. The mental reaction of the " scientist," whom 
Father Dalgairns describes as hearing with strong disfavor 
the absurdly unscientific expressions of the hymns sung 
on board ship while he was trying to discover " the truth" 
about some new kind of bug in his berth, was no less 
emotional than was that of the most pious of the "hym- 
nologists." 

Nature of iEsthetical Sentiments. — The varied and pictu- 
resque activity of the imagination in the construction of 
certain kinds of ideals calls out for its objects a peculiar 
class of sentiments. These ideals themselves are both 
sensuous and objective. The objects which call forth 
sesthetical feeling are properly concrete and lifelike, so 
as to appeal to the constructive activity of imagination 
through some form of sense-presentation. But the ideal, 
when, on the basis of this concrete and sensuous experi- 
ence, it has been constructed, can no longer be regarded 
as merely subjective, as the bare product of the image- 
making faculty. It is regarded as having an objective 
being, and so as fit to receive a certain kind of feeling. 
The sublime or beautiful scene in nature, or the grand and 
beautiful thing in art, is the construct of the imagination 
of the beholder or of the maker. But it is not his own 
imagination which the lover of nature or the artist ad- 
mires ; it is the object, — the construction of mental activity 
regarded as objective. 

We understand, then, the nature of sesthetical senti- 
ments by bearing in mind the following four particulars : 
(1) The thing which excites aesthetical sentiment is al- 
ways some construction of a more or less refined and 
developed activity of the imagination. This is as true of 
the perception of the beautiful in nature as it is of the 
creation of the beautiful in art. The unimaginative mind 
cannot see the beauties of nature. It has been truly said : 
" We view nature's scenes and movements as products, 



.ESTHETICAL SENTIMENTS 345 

and admire the creative and expressive spirit behind." 
But such " viewing " is impossible for an eye that is not 
" armed " with imagination. 

But (2) the contemplative attitude of intellect before 
the object is the characteristic of this form of sentimental 
feeling. Thus we note that the sesthetical emotions of the 
artist toward his own work arise only when he can pause 
to regard it objectively, or can somehow separate himself 
from it. This attitude Schopenhauer has emphasized as 
" pure contemplation, sinking one's self in perception, losing 
one's self in the object, forgetting all individuality, etc." 

Furthermore, (3) although the sesthetical sentiments 
are agreeable (or disagreeable) feelings, — that is, they 
have a more or less strong tone of pleasure-pain — they 
are not simply " feelings of " the agreeable (or the disa- 
greeable). If that traveller in the Pyrenees, of whom 
M. Guyau tells, really had cesthetical sentiment when 
drinking cool, fresh milk there, he was right in speaking 
of himself as having " experienced a series of feelings 
which the word agreeable is insufficient to designate." 

And, finally, (4) in describing the nature of the sestheti- 
cal sentiments we must never forget their dependence upon 
man's tendency to form ideals. This tendency may itself 
be very obscure and difficult to trace. May we not speak 
of it as a noble dissatisfaction on man's part with every 
thing actual ? And is it not chiefly for lack of this ten- 
dency, and its accompanying' evolution of the imagina- 
tion, that the lower animals seem devoid of genuine 
sesthetical sentiments ? 

We know that certain students of biology have ascribed, in the 
interests of their theory of evolution, a very highly refined sentiment 
of beauty to some of the animals. But this is one of several cases 
where the interests of theory cause the investigator to overreach him- 
self. To prove that birds and beetles take part in the process of 
" natural selection " by choosing their mates in accord with a genuine 
cesthetical sentiment, proves altogether too much. For it proves that 



346 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

birds and beetles have an exquisite refinement of that highest form 
of feeling which elevates them aesthetically far above the power of the 
average naturalist to appreciate or to sympathize with them. Appar- 
ently in the lower animals it is only some form of merely sensuous 
and agreeable feeling, which, so far as the influence of -consciousness 
reaches, operates in the selective process. But in man's case, on the 
contrary, some genuinely sesthetical sentiment, or admiring apprecia- 
tion of the object's value apart from its immediate relation to the individual, 
mingles with all that is most sensuously agreeable. 

On the other hand, the laws of the economical and pleasurable 
activity of the senses in contemplating the object must be regarded 
in awakening all genuine sesthetical feeling. In not a few cases, how- 
ever, higher considerations triumph over the lower and more purely 
sensuous. From ethical and spiritual, as well as from certain more 
immediately sesthetical, points of view, that which is sensuously dis- 
agreeable may come to be regarded with the highest kind of senti- 
mental approbation. Laocoon seems beautiful when we contemplate 
the moral heroism and parental devotion which his otherwise horrible 
situation picturesquely represents. 

Kinds of iEsthetical Sentiment. — It belongs to a more 
special study of psychology, or to philosophy, to classify 
and discuss in detail the various subordinate modifica- 
tions of complex sesthetical feeling. The characteristics 
in respect of which they vary have already been indicated. 
These three, however, require to be more especially noticed : 
(1) the factors contributed by the varying functions of the 
bodily organs ; (2) the factors dependent upon the way 
in which the attention wanders or is focused and redis- 
tributed ; and (3) the range and characteristic quality of 
the activity of imagination and thought in the construc- 
tion of the object which calls out the feeling. 

All these three variables may be illustrated by contrast- 
ing the sentiments which attach themselves to what we 
call " sublime " with those which belong to the contem- 
plation of the "exquisite" or the "pretty." In the one 
case there is nfelt expansiveness of all the more obtrusive 
bodily functions ; the breathing is deeper, the eyes tend 



^ESTHETICAL SENTIMENTS 347 

to move upwards and the head to be thrown back ; the 
very bodily self seems to be expanding — but in vain, to 
take in the magnitude of the object. The attention is 
not fixed but wanders — away into the regions of space, 
or over vast stretches of time ; or else it passes from one 
deed of great power to another, in the effort to experience 
the full effects of such a " summation " of representative 
energy. Meanwhile, imagination and thought are striv- 
ing to outdo themselves in the framing of a picture of 
something worthy of the name sublime. In the apprecia- 
tion of the exquisitely delicate or pretty, on the other 
hand, we feel the bodily and mental act of concentrated 
but not fatiguing attention, while the discriminating con- 
sciousness is giving to imagination a variety of agreeable 
details that are to enter into the products of its construc- 
tive activity. In this connection we may also remark 
upon the felt tendency to rhythmic and easily flowing 
movement which enters into our sesthetical consciousness 
of what we call "graceful." 

A mere mention of the fact that there is a psychology of the 
ludicrous must suffice here. The physiological origin of laughter is 
found in the tendency to overflow, which belongs to all intense cere- 
bral excitement. Thus the savage laughs when he thrusts his enemy 
through with a spear; and the child passes from crying to laughter, 
or blends both, under the influence of the same emotional excitement. 
The development of the feeling of the ludicrous takes place in early 
life, very largely under the influence of the principle of imitation. 
Even adults can scarcely refrain from laughing ivith others, although 
they do not know, or do not regard as ludicrous, that at which others 
are laughing. Laughter also occurs as an expression of the " feeling 
of playfulness." The sympathetic listener can scarcely avoid laughing 
at some of Beethoven's scherzos, which express so forcibly the "play 
feeling " (notably that — called by the master himself a presto — in 
the Seventh Symphony). With refinement of imagination the char- 
acter of the sentiment for the ludicrous, and so the significance of 
laughter, changes greatly. It thus becomes more difficult to tell 
precisely what it is at which all men most intelligently do laugh. 



348 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

But, perhaps, no one characteristic fits so many cases as that which 
the intellect classes as " the incongruous." 

Nature of Ethical Sentiments. — Most of those forms of 
feeling which writers on morals consider it necessary to 
discuss are not distinctively ethical. Or rather the truth 
is, as we have already seen, that any of the original forms 
of feeling may in the course of development take on ethical 
characteristics in a secondary way. For example, natural 
anger becomes an ethical affair when it is regarded as a more 
or less voluntary attitude of the Self toward some object, 
perceived or conceived of ; and then we may speak of it as 
either "morally right" or "morally wrong." This is as 
true of natural sympathy as of natural anger. And, indeed, 
the whole distinction between egoistic and altruistic emo- 
tions, as it is currently made, is inexact psychologically and 
misleading from the point of view of ethics. Anger may 
be as altruistic as sympathy. Indeed, sympathetic anger 
is one of the most valuable and essential forms of a culti- 
vated altruism ; and would that we had more of it ! while 
far too much of so-called sympathy is a mischievous and 
immoral form of egoistic feeling. 

There is such a thing, however, as genuinely ethical 
sentiment. Of all such sentiment the following particu- 
lars are true : (1) Certain original and unique forms of 
feeling belong to the contemplation of conduct and to 
the appreciation of character. These may fitly be spoken 
of as the distinctively ethical sentiments. These sentiments 
are as incapable of derivation from other forms of feeling as 
are any of the higher and more complex processes of con- 
sciousness. So far as we know anything about the con- 
sciousness of the lower animals it does not appear to 
assume these unique forms of affective development. 
(2) Ethical sentiments, however, attach themselves to 
judgments ; and they develop in connection with the 
formation of a system of judgments — having respect to 



ETHICAL SENTIMENTS 349 

certain .qualities of conduct and of character. (3) So 
far as ethical judgments themselves are concerned, there 
is nothing peculiar in those activities of perception, imagi- 
nation, and thought which result in their formation. So 
far as the predicate of such judgments is concerned, they 
are distinctive. They all affirm " rightness " or " wrong- 
ness" of the particular conduct, or character, which is 
made the subject of the judgment. 

Nature of Conscience. — The origin of the conception 
of " rightness " (and its opposite) may be a matter of 
dispute. But there is no special faculty of " conscience " as 
a question of the manner of 'pronouncing judgments merely. 
Any amount of reasoning is admissible in making up the 
mind as to what we will judge right, and what wrong. 
And into this " making-up-the-mind " the entire intel- 
lectual development of the individual and of the race may 
enter ; indeed, it is quite sure to enter. 

By the word " conscience," therefore, psychology under- 
stands a compound of feeling and intellection, relating to 
the quality of conduct and of character. Any individ- 
ual's conscience is his system of feeling-full judgments, 
approving some deeds of will and disapproving others. 
Its precise character is the resultant of constitutional and 
acquired forms of reaction upon his social environment. 
The peculiar feeling of " oughtness " (and its opposite) 
emerges relatively late in the development of the life of 
feeling; yet, probably in most cases, not so late as even 
the earliest forms of genuinely eesthetical sentiment. It 
is, on the whole, more stable than are the allied forms of 
feeling for the beautiful. But the particular judgments 
to which the ethical feeling becomes attached are matters 
of education and development. And like every form of 
human emotion and sentiment the ethical sentiments are 
capable of refinement or coarsening, heightening or dead- 
ening, under the laws of exercise, habit, association, etc. 



350 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Kinds of Ethical Sentiments. — The distinctively moral 
forms of feeling appear to be no more than the following 
three : (1) the feeling of " oughtness " or of moral obliga- 
tion (and its opposite) ; (2) the feeling of moral approba- 
tion (and its opposite), or appreciation of the value of 
conduct; and (3) the feeling of merit (and its opposite). 
The last two of these three forms of ethical sentiment, 
however, appear to be less clearly unanalyzable and 
underived than the first. 

It would take us too far into the special psychology and 
even the metaphysics of ethics to trace the origin and de- 
velopment of these forms of feeling, and to justify the 
statement that they are the only, and yet the distinctively 
human, ethical sentiments. We must content ourselves 
with insisting again upon the distinction between certain 
forms of emotion and sentiment which become connected 
with moral judgments in a secondary way, and those 
unique modifications of consciousness, feeling-wise, which 
make distinctively moral judgments possible at all. Our 
general position, however, may be briefly illustrated by 
considering, — 

The Ethical Sentiment of Obligation. — The environment 
of the infant is full of encouragements to certain kinds of 
conduct, and of checks and inhibitions put upon other 
kinds of conduct. The encouragements are, in general, 
the agreeable results which follow doing certain things ; 
the inhibitions are often prompt and severe in the form 
of disagreeable results of conduct. As the distinction 
between persons and things is forced upon the child, 
another sort of distinction, scarcely less important, is also 
emphasized. This is the distinction between events that 
happen and merely give pleasure or pain, and the doings 
of persons that are received by other persons either with 
approbation and reward or with disapprobation and pun- 
ishment. 



ETHICAL SENTIMENTS 351 

If this distinction were merely set into the child's 
environment, and did not awaken any unique response in 
feeling on his part, it could never become the basis for a 
truly ethical development. But the case is not so. Just 
as a peculiar form of agreeable feeling, which is something 
more than mere feeling of the agreeable, dawns in the 
consciousness of the child when it sees others admiring 
objects which they call " beautiful " ; so does an equally 
unique, agreeable feeling, which is something more than 
a feeling for the agreeable, dawn within his consciousness 
when he finds others approving of his conduct as "good." 
At first the blow because he has bitten his mother, and 
the smarting burn because he has touched the glowing 
coal, have the same significance. But perception and 
thought distinguish differences between these two kinds 
of inhibition. An inner difference springs up, in the form 
of feeling with which they are received. 

The forms of behavior in himself and others, to which 
the germinal feelings of " ought " and " ought not " attach 
themselves, depend at first almost wholly upon the envi- 
ronment of the child. He judges " right " that which 
those about him judge right, and " wrong " what those 
about him judge wrong. At first, then, the uniquely 
moral content of the predicates of such judgments, — of 
the ideas of right and wrong, — is defined, for the infant, 
in terms of the obscure feelings which are called forth in 
him. In other words, it is a matter of education and 
of development, ivhat he shall judge right, and what 
wrong. But morals did not begin with his judgments ; 
the history of the formation of moral judgments is as old 
as the history of the human race. 

With the general development of the faculty of judg- 
ment — of the power to think for one's self on the basis of 
an enlarged experience of consequences and an expansion 
or fluctuation of ideals — the attachments of the ethical 



352 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

sentiment of obligation became changed. Hence, often- 
times that peculiar conflict of sentiments which arises 
when the individual feels " I ought not," according to the 
early education of judgment, and yet knows "I ought," 
because he now apprehends a reason for a valid change of 
judgment. But from this point onward, it is not neces- 
sary to follow the development of ethical sentiment. 

The view just sketched seems to us to harmonize, so far as psy- 
chology can, the opposite contentions of the intuitional and the evolu- 
tionary schools in ethics. In refusing to admit that ethical sentiments 
can be explained as a form of the feeling of the agreeable — that 
moral feeling belongs to the pleasure-pain group — the intuitionists 
are in the right, so far as psychology can say. Nor can we find any- 
thing in biology or so-called anthropology to displace them from this 
position. But that the particular judgments which called out these 
sentiments and which claim for themselves the appropriate use of the 
ideas corresponding to the words right and wrong, are matters for 
historical and evolutionary study, there is just as little doubt. 

It seems also to us that the origin of the ideas of right and wrong 
for the individual, so far as it does not lie in the reception of current 
conceptions without any experience to answer to them, must be found 
in the ethical sentiments of the individual. 

Final Purpose of the Emotions and Sentiments. — We have 
already seen that it is impossible to account for all the 
simpler pleasure-pains on the principle that they are 
obviously favorable to the preservation of the individual 
and to the development of the species (comp. p. 99 f.). 
When the more complex forms of developed feeling are 
studied, the final purpose of them offers a yet more diffi- 
cult problem. All strong emotions, whether exceedingly 
depressing (" asthenic " ) or excessively stimulating 
("sthenic"), may be injurious and even dangerous to 
the integrity of the organism. It has been said that the 
former kill by laming the heart and the latter by apoplexy. 
There are two branches of the subject, however, in which 
a certain amount of teleology seems fairly obvious. 



EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS 853 

(1) As has already been indicated, many of the motor 
reactions called forth by the more primitive forms of 
emotion have a defensive or an offensive purpose to serve. 
The cerebral excitement of anger naturally overflows into 
the muscles, which clench the fists, and stiffen the limbs, 
and erect the body with head thrown back. But when 
Mr. Spencer argues that the distension of the nostrils in 
anger was caused by the mouth of " our ancestors" being 
filled with "a part of an antagonist's body," or that the 
frown was useful in keeping the sun out of the eyes while 
engaged in mortal combat, he shows his customary versa- 
tility rather than a corresponding regard for undoubted 
psycho-physical facts. 

Moreover, (2) in connection with a wide extension of 
the pervasive tendency to sympathetic feeling, many of 
the emotions and sentiments operate for the defence and 
preservation of the species, and for increasing the social 
solidarity of the race. Indeed, certain of our higher sen- 
timents are the forms of consciousness in which lie the 
sources of all the highest and choicest human develop- 
ments. Among them the chief are the sesthetical, the 
ethical, and the religious. 

For further extensions of this line of thinking we 
must resort to philosophy, whose rational faith Browning 
expresses in the question : — 

"Put pain from out the world, what room were left 
For thanks to God, for love to man ? " 

[See Ribot : Jhe Psychology of the Emotions ; Spencer : Principles 
of Psychology, II, § 503 f . ; and Darwin : Expression of the Emotions. 
Compare also Stanley : Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling; Marshall : 
Pleasure, Pain, and .-Esthetics; Maas : Versuch iiber d. Gefiihle ; and. 
Leslie Stephen : Science of Ethics, chap, viii.] 



CHAPTER XVII 

WILL AND CHARACTER 

It has already been made abundantly evident that all 
mental development, especially as a growth in the know- 
ledge of Self, is dependent upon the development of active 
consciousness, with its added accompaniment of a con- 
sciousness of activity. But the form of this development 
upon which all growth of mind so largely depends must 
itself now be briefly examined. The word " Will " is 
customarily chosen to express such psychoses as espe- 
cially emphasize the side of developed active conscious- 
ness. In this way "willing" is made to enter into all 
mental development; and the development of will is 
spoken of as giving conditions to the whole stream of 
consciousness. Thus, too, "willing" (Wollen) comes 
to be thought of as coextensive with "acting" (Handeln), 
and even with all that "doing" (Thuii) which we call 
our own. 

It is also apparent, however, that by such a term as this 
("Will") there is indicated a complex rather than a 
perfectly simple and one-sided view of conscious states. 
The term indicates, indeed, an aspect of all developed 
mental life, rather than a single faculty, to which we are 
introduced by legitimate psychological analysis. The 
significance of this truth will become apparent as dis- 
cussion proceeds. But the discussion should evidently 
begin with considering the nature of — 

Will as a Development. — That all consciousness is cona- 
tive, we saw when occupied with a review of the funda- 
mental processes of mental life (Chap. VI). Conation 



WILL AS A DEVELOPMENT 355 

was then regarded as an original datum of man's mental 
life, — a sort of birthright belonging to every human stream 
of consciousness. But to exercise "freewill" — in any- 
meaning of the term which the ethical and social sciences 
can regard as psychologically satisfactory — is no man's 
birthright. It is the result of a complex development. 
It is, indeed, an achievement which different individuals 
make in widely different degrees. This development of 
the faculty called " Will " requires three things, each of 
which comes only as a maturing product of mental life, and 
to different individuals in very different degrees. These 
are (1) the formation of ideals that may be set before the 
mind to be realized by courses of conduct ; (2) the intelli- 
gence of means which are to be employed in the effort to 
realize the ideals ; and (3) the so-called power of choice, 
which is itself a matter of complex and varied develop- 
ment of the conative in connection with other elementary 
psychical processes. 

The varied uses of the word " will " and the connections of the term 
with passionate discussions in ethics and religion (over "freedom,' 
" responsibility," " determination," and even the righteousness of the 
Divine Government) render it undesirable for the uses of the psychol- 
ogist. H off ding has pertinently said : " As in Greek mythology Eros 
was made one of the oldest and at the same time one of the youngest 
of the gods, so in psychology the will may, according to the point of 
view, be represented as the most primitive, or as the most complex 
and derivative of mental products." But for the "most primitive" 
of those processes which are customarily described by this word we 
have already chosen the term " conation." And now for the very 
complex and varied mental processes which belong to the develop- 
ment of consciousness viewed on its active side, we have no better 
term left than this, — namely, the "Will." It is our design, however, 
to confine the following discussion as strictly as possible to the 
psychologist's standpoint. 

It should scarcely be necessary in this connection, to repeat what 
has been said as to the " interpenetration " of all the other so-called 
faculties, during the whole course of their development, with the 
growing influence of will. Or rather, we may say : it is the willing 



356 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

mind, regained as definitely adopting ends, selecting means, checking or 
indulging appetencies, planning and controlling, or "succumbing" as 
respects the trend and issue of the stream of consciousness, which is the 
fundamental and the impressive thing about all human mental life. 

Nature of a Volition. — The study of the "appetitive" 
functions and processes of mind (see Chap. VIII), taken 
in connection with views subsequently established as 
to the growth of intellection (Chaps. XII and XIII), has 
prepared the way for an understanding of the nature of a 
volition. This higher form of conation differs from mere 
primary conation or primitive attention, by being con- 
sciously determined according to some recognized content. 
Volition is conation which knows what it wants. Such 
conation is involved in the intellectual processes of com- 
parison, when these processes take place with a view to 
knowledge of some object or to some immediate practical 
end. Whenever the child will know whether A is or is 
not like B, or will conclude from the signs exhibited by 
some agent as to what that agent is about to do, it 
exercises a volition. Perhaps the better way to express 
the same truth is to say that, in all such cases, the intel- 
lectual processes themselves become volitional. 

By a " volition " we understand, then, a definite conative 
activity consciously directed toward the realization of some 
mentally represented end, preceded or accompanied by the 
condition of desire, and usually accompanied or followed by 
the feeling of effort. The phrase " accompanied by the con- 
dition of desire " lays emphasis on the appetitive nature 
of the volition; the phrase "accompanied or followed by 
the feeling of effort " lays emphasis upon the fact that 
movement and tendency to movement belong naturally to 
every volition. 

Variables in every Volition. — The very nature of a voli- 
tion, as just described, is such as to admit of a con- 
siderable variety in the combination of its characteristic 



WILL AS VOLITION 357 

features. The particular modification of consciousness, 
or the complex conscious state, in which any volition con- 
sists, may differ from other volitions in the way in which 
the following five characteristics are combined: (1) The 
end toward which the particular volition is directed may 
be conceived with more or less distinctness. The amount 
of intellectual clearness modifies the character of the ac- 
companying "deed of will." Inasmuch as the character 
of every volition depends upon its content, — upon what 
is willed, — as this content varies the volition itself varies 
in character. It is quite a different thing, for example, 
for the child to will to grasp an attractive bauble and for 
the man of science to will to enter upon a course of in- 
vestigation into the correctness of the idea which has just 
flashed into his mind. 

(2) Suppose that two or more ends which cannot both 
be willed present themselves in rapid succession before 
the mind. Then a " conflict of desires," with their accom- 
panying tendencies to volition, must result. But in per- 
haps the larger number of cases only one end appears as 
the content of volition, and the volition itself follows 
without appearance of conflict. In this way a difference 
is originated between " unimotived " volitions and other 
volitions which follow, as solutions of cases of conflict, 
in the form of a more definite choice. 

(3) The amount of desire, or of appetitive conscious- 
ness, which enters into different volitions varies enor- 
mously. This variation is dependent upon temperament, 
mood, circumstances, and upon the nature of the object 
in which the volition terminates. Some volitions are pale 
and nerveless ; some are blood-red and swollen with the 
most intense passion. 

(4) There are certain variations of volition which are 
characterized by the popular language, and which have to 
do with - the way in which the will "goes off," so to speak. 



358 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

This variation concerns the amount — the more or less — 
of what is called deliberation. The process of "delibera- 
tion " itself is a compound of intellection and inhibitory 
volition. " Hold on while I think " is its formula. But 
the very volition which terminates the deliberative process 
varies according to the amount and character of the pro- 
cess itself. The " deed of will " which follows prolonged 
and painstaking deliberation is itself differently done from 
that of "reckless" or "hasty" will. 

(5) Volitions also differ in an important way accord- 
ing as they stand differently related to the motor organ- 
ism on which they must rely for their execution. Here a 
distinction may be introduced between (a) volitions of 
inhibition and (b~) volitions of positive innervation. In 
the former case (a) the "deed of will," during the process 
of deliberation, seems to resemble a "holding back" of 
the tendency to do something by immediate use of the 
bodily organism. The deliberative process terminates by 
a "letting.. go," or by a more decided and supposably final 
"putting down " of the tendency to motion and the strain 
of resistance to movement. In the latter case (5), the 
"deed of will" often appears as a sort of summoning of 
energy and a temporary struggle to overcome the resist- 
ance of the motor organism. The peculiar feeling of a 
nisus — or contest with the bodily members to get them 
to do our will — ■ becomes then a most important feature 
of the volitional consciousness. 

Volitions as Determining Factors. — In the metaphysics of 
ethics, and in many debated questions of sociology and 
of the other psychological sciences, the inquiry arises, 
whether the volitions do actually determine modifications 
in the stream of consciousness. To this inquiry the 
psychologist, by trying to lay all the emphasis on the 
word "actually," may perhaps reply that metaphysics must 
be appealed to in order to answer it. For the final and 



WILL AS VOLITION 359 

conclusive answer metaphysics must doubtless be held 
responsible. But the psychologist, as a faithful and 
unprejudiced student of conscious states just as he finds 
them, and by the method which cautiously adopts but 
does not cater or cringe to current conceptions of the 
students of physical science, must reply : Volitions cer- 
tainly appear to determine the sequent psychoses includ- 
ing many of the changes in motor consciousness. This 
is, indeed, their characteristic peculiarity as studied in 
their place within the stream of consciousness. And, 
moreover, the psychologist may reply that, so far as we 
can ascertain by observation and experiment, volitions do 
in fact (that is, "actually") determine modifications in 
this so-called "stream." 

In understanding such a position as that just taken, several modi- 
fications of the more obvious meaning of popular language must be in- 
troduced. It is customary to speak of " Will " as a sort of uniquely- 
separable and solely responsible faculty, to which the blame or the 
praise of conduct must be awarded. It should be remembered that 
in every developed volition the whole man acts ; and that there is no such 
thing as a genuine " deed of will " which is not a complex resultant of all 
the so-called faculties. I cannot will to conduct myself so as to reach any 
end unless I can frame an idea of that end; nor can I select and use 
means unless I know what the appropriate means are, or are likely to 
be; nor can I choose either end or means without the ability to frame 
and contrast the ideas of several ends and of their appropriate means. 

Furthermore, there is no doubt that infants generally, and adults 
very frequently, will impulsively, and in such manner that the deed 
of will appears as only one psychosis in a stream which is through- 
out determined by the intensity and order of external excitements. 
Over against this class of experiences may be set those in which the 
volition seems to originate, internally, in the burning of desire or the 
white heat of passion. Such conscious states may be not unfitly 
described as wilful desires or voluntary passions. As Balzac has per- 
tinently said : " Fanaticism, and all other sentiments, are living 
forces. These forces become in certain beings rivers of Will, which 
gather up and carry away everything." 

These and similar experiences teach that, although the impulsive 



360 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

and emotional contents of consciousness appear to determine the 
volitions, the volitional, in turn, so interpenetrate and modify the 
impulsive and emotional as to have the appearance of determining 
them. That I will what I desire, or am moved with passion to will, 
is no truer than that I will what I shall desire and that I adopt my 
passion as the intelligent motif for a required " deed of will." 

Voluntary Thought and Movements. — That volitions do 
determine the character of the sequent conscious states is 
implied in the distinction between voluntary and involun- 
tary thinking or movement. The seemingly forceful in- 
fluence of what we consider as our own willing over the 
trains of thinking and the movements of the body cannot 
be denied. In perception the object perceived, and the 
way in which it is perceived, often appear as something 
determined by our own volition. This appearance of 
determining the character of the mental train by "our 
own " volition is the characteristic of all active recollec- 
tion, or definite thinking, or constructive work of imagi- 
nation. The conscious and intelligent "laying down" 
of judgments, with the conviction of their truthfulness, 
also appears not infrequently as a quite voluntary affair. 
I "cannot help " judging this to be true, does not so much 
mean the confession of a psychical (of course, not a physi- 
cal) impotency, as the assertion of a voluntary allegiance 
to the recognized supremacy of intellectual principles. 
"I will be faithful" to the evidence and to my convic- 
tions, is often quite as appropriate a way of expressing 
the same experience. 

The facts to prove the truth of this view of the will 
might be drawn from all the processes which have already 
been described and analyzed. For these processes are all 
connected with the development of conation and attention, 
as taking place synchronously with the development of 
ideation and of judgment. In their appearance in con- 
sciousness, volitions are not similar to seyisations or feelings, 



WILL AS CHOICE 361 

or ideas, or thoughts, as such ; but they are phenomena de- 
terminative of the character of all these other states, — in 
the one stream of consciousness. 

In classifying the different bodily movements (p. 115 f .), 
some were spoken of as voluntary. These are character- 
ized by three classes of peculiarities which do not belong 
in the same way to the so-called involuntary movements. 
Voluntary movements are (1) dependent upon volition, 
in the stricter meaning of this word as a "deed of will" 
directed to the realization of an end; they are (2) often 
suffused in a peculiar way with the "feeling of effort"; 
and they are (3) executed only with a special motor 
apparatus, or outfit of striated muscles connected by 
definite nerve-tracts with the higher areas of the brain. 
To exhibit the details of the last of these three character- 
istics belongs to physiology. Our attention has already 
been called at sufficient length to the second characteristic 
as indicative, physiologically considered, of the automatic 
energy of the central nervous mechanism, and, psycho- 
logically considered, of the feeling of being active and 
yet resisted in our activity. The first and central one of 
the three characteristics is emphasized by observing what 
are the actual modifications of consciousness which are 
experienced in all distinctly deliberate and voluntary 
movements of the body. Between the desire to move and 
the idea of the movement desired, on the one hand, and the 
actually accomplished movement, on the other hand, some- 
thing intervenes which is unique in psychical character, and 
ivhich we express fitly by the words : " I will." 

Nature of Choice. — The highest form of volition is that 
which men designate as a "choice." In the psychological 
treatment of this phenomenon of consciousness we are 
most of ail compelled to be satisfied with description only. 
We can tell what appears to introspection as going on in 
consciousness ; we can make a fairly complete picture of 



362 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

what we seem to ourselves to be doing. But here expla- 
nation is at a minimum. A man's choices often appear to 
him to come out of the mysterious depths of himself. 
Nor is this appearance diminished by a careful considera- 
tion of the nature of those influences "under which," as 
it is popularly said, he is conscious of choosing. 

Five "moments," or "stages," maybe recognized in the 
most elaborate and complete processes of choosing. They 
are the following : (1) mental representation of two or 
more ends regarded as dependent upon conduct ; (2) ex- 
citement of some desire, emotion, or sentiment, implying 
a feeling of the value of these ends ; (3) more or less of 
deliberation, or reflective weighing of these values, and 
of the risks and consequences mentally connected with 
their choice ; (4) decision, or the appropriation to Self of 
one of these ends to the exclusion of the others — the 
cutting short of deliberation and the pronouncing of a 
" fiat of will " ; and (5) the more distinct consciousness 
of doing something or the issuing of the executive voli- 
tion. 

These five " moments " may all be much huddled together ; or, on 
the contrary, the first three of them may be indefinitely drawn out. 
In either case two things should be observed for the better understand- 
ing of this distinctive process. First : in all the first three "moments" 
of the process of choosing, the will is active; for mental representa- 
tion, the indulging or restraining of feeling and the acceptance of 
motives, as well as especially deliberation, are processes that call for 
voluntary activity. But, second : it is the decision which is, in all 
deliberate choices, the unique function of will ; in it the voluntary 
Self comes to the realization of its supreme form of development. 

Of these five " moments " of choice, two require a brief 
separate treatment. These are the third and fourth, or 
the deliberation and the decision. 

Nature of Deliberation. — We have seen how largely im- 
pulsive and instinctive is all the earlier conscious action 
of the human infant. But nothing is more suggestive of 



WILL AS CHOICE 363 

the experience in which the development of will arises 
than to observe the infant's early pauses of surprise and 
his hesitation before "judgment is rendered" and "action 
entered upon." More and more may this inhibitory sus- 
pense itself become a matter of volition. Hence the part 
which will itself plays in deliberation. It is the growth 
of experience, however, as a matter of memory and of 
cognition which enhances the value and enriches the con- 
tent of the deliberative process. Men learn by experience 
that it will not do not to deliberate, not to think about 
consequences. They learn also what particular conse- 
quences to expect from the different courses of conduct 
whose attractiveness and value they are estimating in the 
process of deliberation. 

The influence of deliberation, in itself considered, upon 
all the ideational and emotional factors which enter into 
the process of choosing is too obvious to need detailed 
consideration. Not infrequently a complete change takes 
place in our feelings and our ideas while we are deliber- 
ating. This is not due simply to the fact that passions 
have time to cool, desires to grow pale, and ideas to fade 
away or gather strength and clearness. It is also due to 
the other fact that ive are ourselves, in the very act of 
deliberating or estimating our oivn feelings and ideas, volun- 
tarily determining the conditions of the subsequent choice. 
For the distinctive thing about the deliberative process is, 
not so much its exercise of intelligence, as its voluntary 
character. It is will preliminary to choice. 

Deliberation, since it involves the continuous and planful control 
of discriminating attention, and the conscious suspension of a deciding- 
judgment until other judgments have been formed and the ideas have 
been subjected to some standard of value, is a notable manifestation 
of Will. It is distinctive of the mature human being to deliberate. 
Thus the development of this faculty differences the adult man — the 
fall-grown Self — from the infant, the idiot, the savage, or the childish 
and immature adult. 



364 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Nature of a Decision. — It is in the fourth " moment " of 
choice that the supreme manifestation of will appears. 
This is, indeed, that form of voluntary activity which is 
fitly called the choice. Up to this point the complex 
mental process consists of a more or less prolonged and 
slow or rapidly finished alternation of representative ideas 
with their appropriate affective accompaniments. For ex- 
ample, A, B, and then C, appear in consciousness, and we 
feel more or less strongly attracted or repelled by each. 
In a measure, we constantly keep deciding which we will 
attend to, as actually being somehow entitled (ethically 
or aesthetically) to have most value for us. But as yet 
we have not adopted either A, or B, or C, as the idea to be 
set into reality by our conduct. A, or B, or C ; which ? 
This is still the problem. At present it is scarcely C, 
possibly B, but most likely A, that will be our answer, 

— "adopted" for the solution of this problem. Still, who 
can tell ? Not even we ourselves. For only the decision 
decides; only the resolution resolves the problem. 

But now the decision is made ; and after all, it is the 
improbable C which has been adopted rather than the 
more probable B, or the antecedently almost certain A. 
Or it is A which we make our own by this "deed of will," 

— doing it with the feeling that it was absurd for us ever 
to hesitate and delay over the consideration of a probable 
B, or a most unlikely C. Or it is B which at last seems 
fairly forced upon us, because the deliberative process has 
brought forward a new train of ideas and a flood of feel- 
ings, which all enhance the attractiveness or the ideal 
value of B ; and so quite drive both C and A out of our 
thoughts. But in either case, and in every case of a simi- 
lar experience, it is the decision or " cutting-short " of the 
process of deliberation, in which the will gives supreme ex- 
pression to itself as developed self -activity . 

This mental phenomenon of decision appears before the 



WILL AS CHOICE 365 

psychologist, first of all, as a fact demanding recognition. 
As a scientific student of all mental phenomena he is 
bound to accept and describe this fact in its full signifi- 
cance, to explain it partially or wholly, if possible ; and 
then, perhaps, to turn it over to ethics or to the philoso- 
phy of mind for further adjustment with our total human 
experience. Its faithful description emphasizes the fol- 
lowing particulars : (1) After making a decision, as well 
as during the process of deliberation which leads up to 
the decision, we know that we are "influenced" by 
motives. That is to say, we know that some ideas " at- 
tract " and some " repel " us, and so modify our affective 
consciousness ; and that ideals have different degrees and 
orders of value in our imagination and judgment. But 
even in all this we are conscious of "loilling our own 
way," in a measure, toward the final decision. (2) In 
making any decision, if it is a real decision, and in reflect- 
ing upon it after it is made, we have the rational conviction 
that it, in some peculiar and unique sense, is our very own. 
We were more or less strongly influenced, to be sure ; 
and we now believe that the decision was wise or foolish, 
morally good or bad, as the case may seem to be. But, 
in any and every case, we did it. If any of our conscious 
states are ours, then a decision is a fortiori ours; if we have 
any right to believe that we ever do anything, then we 
ourselves do make (and do not have made for us) our 
own decisions. (3) When, however, we come to explain 
to others, or to ourselves, how a decision can really origi- 
nate in this; way, most of our attempted explanation is 
either a subversion or a reiteration of the fact of experi- 
ence. I decided; — in the view of considerations A, B, 
C, etc., to be sure, — but still it was I who decided. I 
know what it is to act impulsively, to do things, even 
those that seem voluntary, without making any real de- 
cision. I do many things this way ; but in this case, it 



366 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

was not so. The reasons for my decision were these; and 
for these reasons, I so decided. 

Such naive declarations of the facts of consciousness 
are not, at present, made any more explicable by the re- 
searches of a scientific psychology. We doubt whether 
they will ever be explained; whether they will not always 
have to be accepted as expressing an ultimate datum of 
fact. At any rate we are warranted in saying that, to the 
existing science of psychology there is nothing known that 
makes any less unique, mysterious, and impressive, the as- 
sumption of an inexplicable spontaneity of conscious mind 
in making, after deliberation, a decision. 

This is the place to protest against assumptions or alleged proofs 
which discredit or weaken the character and significance of a con- 
scious and deliberate choice. Even so fair-minded a writer as Hoffding 
has quite gone beyond the limits of scientific hypothesis when he 
declares : " Psychology, like any other science, must be deterministic ; 
that is to say, it must start from the assumption that the causal law 
holds good even in the life of the will, just as this law is assumed to 
be valid for the remaining life and for material nature." Psychology 
has absolutely no right to any such assumption. Psychology must 
stick to the facts of consciousness; discover and describe them just as 
they are; and then, if it can, explain them. But it must not sophis- 
ticate them. Among these facts it finds the conscious and deliberate 
choice. Its appearance is decidedly not that of a phenomenon in which 
" the causal law holds good, just as this law is assumed to be valid for 
the remaining life and for material nature." It is rather that of a 
fact arising in the mysterious depths of the self-directing mind. 

When, further, a writer like M. Luys asserts that the consciousness 
of choosing is illusory and that the object chosen is " only forced on 
us by the cunning conjuror, the brain," because "the cell-territory 
where that object resides has been previously set vibrating in the 
brain," he substitutes a worse than doubtful physiological hypothesis 
for the psychological explanation of a phenomenon whose significance 
he begins by plumply denying. Nor does the fact that " will-time " 
in reaction can be reduced by establishing fixed associations between 
certain perceptions and assigned modes of selected movement, alter 
essentially the nature of this problem. 



WILL AS CHOICE 367 

The Formation of Plans. — The more expansive and wide- 
reaching, though less intense and concentrated, exercise 
of the developed will is seen in the formation and execu- 
tion of plans. All volitions and choices are, indeed, 
purposeful; they contemplate some plan of action. If, 
for example, I choose to draw the straight line X between 
A and B, rather than the curved line Y between O and D, 
or choose to draw a circle rather than a triangle, I am 
adopting one plan of conduct in preference to another. 
But deliberate choices, or "deeds of will" that have been 
"thought out," constitute a sort of hierarchy in the con- 
trol of conduct. As entering into such comprehensive 
choices we notice especially the following four variables : 
(1) Both the end proposed, and the means necessary to 
the realization of the plan, may be more or less compre- 
hensive in themselves. But comprehensiveness, in general, 
is characteristic of planning as distinguished from choos- 
ing in an isolated fashion, as it were. (2) Steadiness or 
firmness of will — what Sully has expressively referred to 
as "the very backbone of what we call will" — varies in 
different plans, and in all the plans of different indi- 
viduals. But steadiness of will is more generally char- 
acteristic of plans than of single volitions or choices. 
(3) The degree of the subsequent modification of the Self 
which follows the formation of different plans varies 
greatly. Some terminate quickly, and with unimportant 
influences over our other mental life, and our habits of 
action. But others are transforming. And, in general, 
control of conduct belongs to those choices which constitute 
the formation of a plan. (4) The plans of any man do 
not all indicate to the same extent the more fundamental 
emotions, the profounder convictions, the more influential 
ideas and thoughts, of the man. But the character of 
every man is indicated in the most summary way by the 
plans he forms and by the way he pursues them. 



368 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

It is, then, in the formation and execution of plans that 
the significance of the development of what is called "the 
human will " becomes most obvious and most important. 
For it is in this shape that the supremacy of conduct, and 
the final purpose of mental development for the individual, 
most clearly appear. These two truths, then, belong espe- 
cially to the psychology of the will as engaged in the 
formation and execution of plans : (1) The intimate con- 
nection between developed conation and motor consciousness, 
between choices, and the tensions and movements of the mus- 
cular organism as necessary to the realization of the choices, 
makes what we call " conduct " (as distinguished from mere 
action) possible. All the psychical development thus cul- 
minates and expresses itself in planful, voluntary action. 
What I do according to a chosen plan, how I manage 
myself in a large and comprehensive and intelligent way, . 
— that is, especially, what I have come to be. 

For (2) it is the formation and execution of plans ivhich 
chiefly constitutes the real unity of our psychical development, 
so far as such unity is under our own control. It is 
planful will that welds together the other faculties in 
their manifestations and developments. Thus not only 
is what we will made dependent upon what we think, 
and what we will on what we wish, but what we think 
and wish is subordinate to a comprehensive and steadfast 
will. 

The superiority of man to the lower animals confessedly consists, 
to a large extent, in his being able to develop, adopt, and execute 
far-reaching plans. All the other animals behave, indeed, in a plan- 
ful way. But consciously to espouse, and with fair consistency to 
follow, ideals whose realization is set in the future, is the distinguish- 
ing power of man as compared with them. Thus his superiority 
manifests itself in his foolishness and mistakes and crimes quite as 
unmistakably as in his wise and upright plans. It is one of the secret 
sources of his success in science, art, and in the construction of social 
institutions. The psychological character of such supremacy is com- 



FREEDOM OF WILL 369 

plex. It consists in intellectual excellences; in his endowment with 
a number of vague and yet influential, emotional and sentimental 
tendencies ; and even in the superiority of his bodily organism, with 
its apparatus for articulate language, its deftness of hand, its upright 
posture, and large-sized controlling brain. But it is also, and pre- 
eminently, a matter of the grasp and steadiness of will. In larger 
measure far than any of the other animals, man can lay hold of, and 
shape and mould his conduct, his very Self, according to an ideally 
valuable plan. Thus the Paracelsus of Browning surpasses the ape, 
the child, and the savage ; because he can say : — 

" I have subdued my life to the one purpose 
Whereto I ordained it ; " 
or, again : — 

" I have made my life consist of one idea." 

The Consciousness of Freedom. — The offices of psychology 
in the settlement of disputed questions in metaphysics 
and theology have been nowhere more abused than in 
strife over the so-called "freedom of the will." We have 
already seen that psychology does not justify this term, if 
by "the will" we are to understand an isolated faculty 
that is somehow naturally endowed with a quality called 
that of "being free." But the psychologist, as a faithful 
student of the phenomena of consciousness, notes how one 
of the parties to this strife is accustomed to deny or ex- 
plain away the facts of consciousness ; and how the other 
party is tempted to exaggerate and overstrain the testi- 
mony which consciousness yields in the form of certain 
undoubted and important facts. 

The conscious processes on which the conviction " I am 
free " are founded, or in which this conviction is involved, 
have already been stated. They are no other than the 
processes of choice; and especially, in an intensive way, 
the nature of decision, and, in an extensive way, the 
formation and execution of plans. To sum them up, 
they are all expressed, in a positive way, by the assertion : 
/will; the decision is made by me. I consciously make 



370 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

up rny own mind. Expressed in a negative way, how- 
ever, this conviction appears equivalent to a denial that 
any influence, even that of my own desires and emotions, 
compels me. The choice is a deed of my will; and in 
making it, I am not forced, or compelled, or consciously 
determined (in any other than the way of rational influ- 
ence) to make it as I do. 

To claim that the above-mentioned facts constitute an 
immediate and indubitable testimony to the freedom of 
the Self from law, or from all causal connection with the 
rest of the world, or to the independence of mind on brain, 
is quite to overstate the characteristic impression of the 
facts. But, on the other hand, this sort of an experience 
cannot be resolved into the bare consciousness of acting 
under influence, rather than by compulsion; or into a 
consciousness of acting, with an added consciousness of 
being ignorant of all the reasons for the particular form of 
the action. When I deliberately choose, the complexion of 
the stream of my consciousness — so to speak ■ — is the very 
opposite of that which can properly be described as passive, 
compulsory, or determined by unknown causes. 

This characteristic consciousness may be further described by con- 
trast with those cases of willing where the conviction of " freedom " 
is impaired or lost. Such cases are those of persistent hallucinations, 
or of phrensied emotional excitements, which become "too strong" 
to be inhibited or controlled by will. The conviction is then more 
fitly represented by saying, "I will, because I cannot help it." A 
similar conviction accompanies the experience of those who, without 
such hallucinations or emotions, suffer from so-called " impotency " or 
" disease " of will. The wildly excited or persistently solicited will, 
as well as the morbidly nerveless and doless, may make so-called 
choices under the sense of compulsion. On the other hand, the insane 
or hypnotic as well as the normal consciousness may have a clear and 
strong conviction of being free in willing; and yet, from other 
sources than this consciousness, it may be discovered that the choice 
was ingeniously solicited or largely "forced." Such cases are not, 
however, to be considered parallel with those deliberate and firm 



FREEDOM OF WILL 371 

resolutions of will, backed up by mighty passions or worthy senti- 
ments, which cling to the pursuit of consciously accepted ideals. 
Luther's "God help me; I cannot otherwise" is a very different 
thing, psychologically considered, from the child's whimpering "I 
couldn't help it," or the kleptomaniac's plea of " Guilty ; but com- 
pelled to do as I did." 

The Fact of Imputability. — The attribution of the " deed 
of will " to the Self, especially in the forms of decision and 
planning, follows from the consciousness of "being free" 
in willing. The conception of "imputability" and of re- 
sulting "responsibility " follows from the joint influence 
of the doer's ethical sentiment and his apprehension of 
the prevalent social judgment. Who did this thing ? is a 
question which both the individual and society are always 
asking. If I remember that I willed it, I say in the fuller 
meaning of the words : I did it. If it was done by me as 
a matter of my choice, I am required by society, as well as 
by my own consciousness, to assume responsibility for it. 

It is important, however, to notice that the distinctions 
which the social development of man makes and enforces 
are by no means very nice here. As to imputability, there 
is little hesitation or doubt, as soon as the question, To 
what Self can this doing be ascribed ? has been answered. 
But different communities and eras of civilization, as well 
as different individual theologians and moralists, vary 
enormously in their estimates as to what are the nature, 
the limits, and the grounds of responsibility. 

At this point descriptive psychology is compelled to 
hand over the theory of will, its freedom and development, 
to the researches of comparative ethics and to the reflec- 
tions of the philosopher. Yet in doing this it seems to 
have brought us to the place where we have to acknowledge 
that, not something external to consciousness, but something 
manifesting itself in consciousness, contains the secret of 
man's mental life and mental development. 



372 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

The Formation of Character. — All that has been said in 
this chapter has been introductory to a most important 
conception. This conception is best expressed by the 
word " Character," in the narrower and more carefully 
limited meaning of the word. In such a meaning of the 
word we ideally separate off, from the obvious character- 
istics of the stream of consciousness, something which 
seems to be more permanent and to lie lower down. Of 
such more permanent and profound characteristics of this 
stream, we further constitute two divisions. To the first 
division belongs what we vaguely call our " nature," our 
" disposition," or " temperament " ; to the second we 
ascribe our self-formed habits of will. The habitual 
modes of my voluntary reactions I call my " character " 
in the narrower meaning of the word. 

Two remarks at once suggest themselves : (1) We can- 
not, in fact, carry out into details the separation between 
nature or disposition and character. Yet (2) in our 
estimate of ourselves and of others we are compelled, in 
the interests of reason itself, to make the distinction ; and 
to carry it out as best we may. It does not belong to 
descriptive psychology, however, to criticise and to vali- 
date or reject the distinction. The psychologist sees how 
such a distinction necessarily arises from our observation 
of the differences existing between those more impulsive 
and appetitive conations and volitions with which human 
life begins, and which continue in all its lower forms of 
development, and those more highly self-conscious and 
purposeful choices which the developed man recognizes 
as most especially his own. It is the latter, which, when 
solidified and organized into habitual modes of the higher 
reactions of will, he calls his "character." 

The significance of the distinction between nature or disposition 
and character is very important both for our practical estimate of 
the merit of conduct and for ethical philosophy. Among rude and 



WILL AND CHARACTER 373 

savage peoples notions of the responsibility for conduct are little 
governed by such a distinction. The same thing is" true of the 
distinction between responsibility and imputability. Among such 
peoples those individuals who are regarded as inspired, or possessed, 
or otherwise controlled by some indwelling agent, may still be held 
responsible for deeds not clearly or fully imputed to them. The 
feeling of responsibility for the sins of the nation or tribe, which is 
so strong in certain communities, affords another interesting class of 
phenomena bearing on this problem. In the doctrine of metemp- 
sychosis, the praise and blame which our modern ethics consider 
merited only according to character may be awarded according to 
the nature of the individual. Certain systems of theology, as is well 
known, have founded themselves on a psychology which refuses to 
distinguish between nature and character, or between the most vague 
form of imputability and the strictest form of responsibility. 

The Education of Will. — Since the formation of character 
according to right ideas is the supreme end of all education, 
the development of will is essential to successful education. 
Three things are particularly to be noted as bearing on 
this development : (1) The desirability of getting the 
habits of bodily movement formed as early as possible, 
in accordance with considerations of economy, ease, pleas- 
ure, and of a higher sesthetical and ethical order. Thus 
the conscious control of life is facilitated by the services 
of a good automaton. 

(2) The formation of correct habits of attention is also 
one important part of the development of the will. In 
its higher applications this means the securing of con- 
scious selection and fixation for the ideals of conduct ; 
and the intelligent discrimination and use of the means 
necessary for their realization. 

(3) Then follows the construction of a system of prin- 
ciples of conduct, which must not rule with rods of iron 
over a rigid and unbending subject of volition ; but which 
must secure a blending of that uniformity which is neces- 
sary to give unity, with that capacity for constant read- 



374 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

justment which is necessary to all genuine and successful 
development of the higher mental life. 

[In addition to works already referred to, consult on the conscious- 
ness of self-activity and the origin of the law of causation, the author's 
Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Knowledge (as already referred 
to). See also Galton : Inquiries into Human Faculty; Ribot : Dis- 
eases of the Will ; Hazard : Causation and Freedom in Willing ; 
Fouillee : La Liberte et la Determinisme ; Wiese : Die Bildung d. 
AVillens ; Schellwien : Der Wille die Quelle d. Bewusstseins.] 



CHAPTER XVIII 

TYPES AND PRINCIPLES OF MENTAL 
DEVELOPMENT 

The phenomena of man's mental life exhibit to the 
trained observer an almost indefinite variability. This 
truth applies to different individuals, whether we con- 
sider (a) the variations in the most elementary psychical 
processes, or (b) the various combinations of these pro- 
cesses into so-called "faculties," or (<?) the entire course 
of development which is followed in the life of the indi- 
vidual. In spite of this variability, however, the exis- 
tence of a science of psychology implies the possibility 
of reducing the phenomena to some common terms. 

The foregoing remarks apply even to normal indi- 
viduals. Besides these, however, there are not a few 
cases which show marked development of certain charac- 
teristics amounting to mental "idiosyncracies." Such 
are the musical or mathematical prodigies, those born 
with strong tendencies to strange crime, or the men and 
women with rare natural gifts and talents — not to speak 
of the geniuses. Moreover, all normal individuals (if we 
are to use this somewhat vague adjective) are at times 
subject to -variations in the principal characteristics of 
their mental processes which deserve to be called more 
or less abnormal. The use of these contrasted terms — 
" normal " and " abnormal " — is necessarily somewhat 
vague. Some psychologists, for example, would hesitate 
to speak of the phenomena of dream-life as abnormal ; 
and, indeed, the psychology of dreams, so far as these 
375 



376 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

phenomena have been subjected to scientific investiga- 
tion, does not depart essentially from the psychology of 
waking conscious states. It is now known also that a 
very considerable proportion of individuals may, without 
great difficulty, be made the subjects of hypnosis. And 
we have repeatedly had occasion to remark how illusions 
and hallucinations mix with the ordinary consciousness 
of most persons. 

In spite of this indefinite variability, and in spite of 
the impossibility of drawing hard and fast lines between 
the normal and the abnormal processes of mental life, we 
may discover in this life certain — 

Types and General Principles. — In a somewhat rough 
but serviceable way it is possible to group individual 
minds together under very general classes. It is also 
possible to regard all the forms of mental development — 
the formation of faculty and the combined growth of 
"powers" — as subject to a few general laws. The re- 
sult is a certain psychological doctrine of types and of 
principles applicable to all growth of human minds. 
The basis for a recognition of "types " of mental growth is 
laid in the fact that, although individuals vary indefinitely, 
these variations themselves may be subjected to a process 
of grouping. A differs from every other individual human 
being in many particulars ; it is in these differences and 
in their method of combination, that the individuality 
of A consists. At the same time A is, in general, more 
like B than he is like either C or D; and these latter 
two, although differing in many particulars, are more 
like each other than they are like either B or A. 

Various groupings of individuals may be made accord- 
ing to Temperament, Sex, Age, and Race. These group- 
ings result in a variety of " types " under one or more of 
which each individual may be assumed to find himself 
arranged. In any attempted arrangement of individuals 



TYPES OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 377 

under the last three of these groups, we are guided by 
certain physical facts which it is, in all ordinary circum- 
stances, not impossible to ascertain. But the study of 
the correlated psychical facts leads us at once into doubt- 
ful and disputed fields of investigation. A certain amount 
of definiteness, however, must be allowed to both the 
current and the more scientific conceptions of the " male " 
and the " female " disposition or character, the psychical 
characteristics of childhood, maturity, and old age, the 
ways of thinking and feeling that are peculiar to the 
Oriental or Occidental, the Anglo-Saxon or the Latin, 
mind, etc. In dealing with the matter of temperament 
both the psychical side, and the physiological basis of the 
distinctions made, are obscure and shifting. It is not at 
all strange, then, that the psychology of the mental 
" types " belonging to any one of these four groups is 
scarcely to be spoken of as a scientific affair. 

One can scarcely speak of " laws " in psychology, in 
the sense in which this word applies to the phenomena 
treated by the physical and natural sciences. This in- 
ability seems to be chiefly due to two causes : (1) the 
combinations of influences which enter into the developed 
mental processes are so subtile and manifold as to make 
the reduction of them to any system of definite formulas 
exceedingly difficult ; but, more especially (2) the mind, 
considered as the subject of laws called mental, is also 
known as the willing subject, and so as deciding, within 
not easily assignable limits, its own course in devel- 
opment. It still remains true, however, that certain 
principles of universal character and profound import 
appear in control, so to speak, over all the activity and 
growth of every individual mind. These principles may 
then be said to belong to all human mental develop- 
ment. 

A study of the mental processes of man, considered in 



378 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

their development and from the highest attainable points 
of view, leads to the recognition of at least four such 
principles. These are the principles of Continuity, Rela- 
tivity, Solidarity, and Teleological Import. 

The modern scientific interest in all the various " abnormal " phe- 
nomena of mental life is most promising. But the psychologist, who 
is determined to maintain the truly scientific attitude toward such 
phenomena and toward the study of them, will avoid two extremes. 
On the one hand, he will not refuse to entertain evidence as to all 
alleged facts ; nor will he remain stolidly resolved not to allow any 
amount of evidence to swerve him from his present theoretical posi- 
tion as to the nature and the possibilities of the human mind. But 
on the other hand, the true scientific procedure in psychology, as in 
every other form of science, is from the known to the unknown, from 
the already explained to the still unexplained. The further the stu- 
dent of psychology advances into his science, the more, in our judg- 
ment, does he become convinced that the causes of seemingly new 
mysteries (in telepathy, clairvoyance, double consciousness, etc.) are to 
be sought by following clews which are already in hand. 

For example, no important gap appears between that " dramatic 
sundering " of the Self, in which children indulge at play and which 
what is called conscience forces upon us all, or in which the great 
actor is a trained expert, and the " double consciousness " of the hyp- 
notic, or the insane. No wholly new ethics seems demanded, as yet, 
by any of the clearly ascertained facts put forward in the name of the 
most fanciful of the modern school of criminologists. And we shall 
see in the next chapter that the relations of body and mind have not 
been essentially altered by any of the most recent discoveries in cere- 
bral physiology. 

Nature of the Temperaments. — It is a very ancient per- 
suasion that men may be divided into groups on the basis 
of certain marked characteristics with which the course of 
their mental development sets out from the beginning. 
Since what appears from the beginning of such develop- 
ment must somehow be included in the bodily organism, 
these characteristic differences must be assigned for their 
initial points, as it were, to this organism. Thus, by 
" a Temperament " is understood any marked type of 



TYPES OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 379 

mental constitution and development due to inherited charac- 
teristics of the bodily organism. 

It must be confessed that there is great difficulty in 
placing the doctrine of temperaments, in the form in 
which it has just been stated, upon a truly scientific 
basis. On the whole, however, modern science seems to 
favor some such doctrine. The study of human physi- 
ology and psychology, in their joint work, requires us 
especially to emphasize the following two sets of considera- 
tions : (1) It is the original constitution of the nervous 
system in which the basis of differences in temperament 
is laid. Different nervous systems differ, "naturally," as 
respects the degree of their sensitiveness to stimuli, the 
rapidity and duration of their response to different stim- 
uli, and the facility with which certain combinations, 
rather than others, are made by the central organs. But, 
of course, no nervous system can be considered as func- 
tioning independently of the other bodily organs. Three 
other systems of organs, as they get expression in the ner- 
vous system, are particularly concerned in the determina- 
tion of every individual's temperament : these are (a) the 
vaso-motor, (b) the digestive, and (c) the muscular. 

But (2) we have already seen that the psychological 
doctrine of the development of will leads us to distin- 
guish character from the original mental "constitution" 
(as we vaguely say), built upon a basis of inherited char- 
acteristics. Men's characters change ; or, rather, men 
change their characters. But the doctrine of tempera- 
ment requires us to admit something permanent which 
changes of character may partially conceal, or overlay, 
but cannot change. All this is doubtless very vague and 
difficult, or impossible, to follow into details. But, on 
the whole, it seems to warrant this conclusion : Self -deter- 
mination as respects character is limited by that determina- 
tion of the Self which reposes upon an inherited physical 



380 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

constitution. Every individual can do something, perhaps 
much, toward " the making of " his Self ; but in all such 
doing he is limited by certain original and unchanging 
tendencies, that are embodied in an inherited nervous 
system, as itself influenced by the characteristic vaso- 
motor, digestive, and muscular functions of that particular 
individual. 

If now inquiry be made as to a more precise description of those 
variables in the reactions of the nervous system which enter into the 
constitution of the different temperaments, it is not difficult to dis- 
tinguish the following: — variables (1) in the kind of reaction ; (2) in 
the measure of sensitiveness shown ; (3) in duration and conservative 
energy for laying the basis of cerebral habit ; (4) in rapidity of produc- 
tion ; (5) in completeness of reproduction ; (6) in rapidity of combina- 
tion; (7) in the kinds of combination most favored; but especially 
(8) in the characteristic accompaniments of feeling. 

Kinds of Temperament. — Considering the indefiniteness of 
the whole subject there has been a remarkable agreement 
as to the number and character of the groups of indi- 
viduals formed when they are classified according to tem- 
perament. This agreement is the more remarkable because 
the principles upon which any system of grouping should 
be carried out are still in dispute. Four kinds of tem- 
perament have been almost universally agreed upon ; and 
to these four the names Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic, 
and Melancholic or Sentimental (or " poetic "), have now 
been accorded. 

A certain type of individuals, which may be met with 
in both sexes, in all races, and in different ages (although 
most clearly distinguished in middle life) is characterized 
by a lively and varied excitability under the different 
forms of impression, with habitually rapid change, but 
without corresponding depth and stability. These are 
called sanguine temperaments. Another type is scarcely 
less quick, but is less varied in its reactions ; while the 
reactions are more enduring, passionate, and determined, 



TYPES OP MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 381 

and the forms of conduct as well as the conscious states 
are less liable to change. These are the men of choleric 
temperament. Still another type is characteristically slug- 
gish, the opposite of lively and versatile ; although it may 
be either tenacious or lacking in respect of what is called 
will. To such the name phlegmatic has been assigned. 
The fourth type is less easily described. It may be called 
the poetic temperament. Persons of this type are lively in 
imagination, susceptible to impressions of sense, moody in 
feeling, uncertain in conduct. 

It is interesting to notice that one set of terms for the various 
temperaments is astrological in origin. In being born under the 
influence of the different planets the older theory found a sufficient 
reason why one man should be "Jovial," another "Saturnine," and 
still another " Mercurial," in temperament. Some advance was made 
in tne explanation of such constitutional differences, when they were 
ascribed to the circulatory and digestive systems. Thus the san- 
guine or " full-blooded " man differed from the phlegmatic or " f ull- 
phlegmed " man ; and as well from the choleric or melancholic man 
who was "full of bile." A mixture of such influences seems to have 
been imagined at work in the case of him whom Shakespeare de- 
scribes as of " that surly spirit, melancholy," which " baked " the blood 
and made it " heavy, thick." 

Even so modern a psychologist as Wundt thinks that 
the conception of temperament may properly be applied 
to different ages and races of men, and to different species 
of animals. Undoubtedly youth is more naturally san- 
guine or sentimental, maturity more choleric, old age 
more phlegmatic. In general, women are more senti- 
mental ; men more choleric. Perhaps one might vent- 
ure to call the French characteristically sanguine, the 
Dutch phlegmatic, the English a mixture of phlegmatic 
and choleric, the Japanese sentimental. But neither in 
individuals nor in races do we find any of the types per- 
fectly "pure " ; and so examples taken from each class 
shade away into each other. 



382 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

Differences of Sex. — The fundamental physical differ- 
ences of the two sexes are, many of them, obvious enough. 
Of such differences some are nearly constant, some periodic, 
and some epochal. The minuter histological and the 
detailed functional differences are very numerous and 
doubtless influential ; but they are difficult as yet to 
establish in a thoroughly indisputable and scientific way. 
From birth onward, through all the ages to maturity and 
old age, the average brain of the male surpasses in size 
and weight that of the female. But this difference seems 
to be chiefly expressive of the difference in the total weight 
and size of the body, and in the amount and adjustment of 
muscular development. 

These grosser bodily differences of the sexes are very 
important in determining a variety of rather massive psy- 
chical differences. Taken together they make up a charac- 
teristically different basis for mental development. The 
complicated sensory-motor organism is of the most essen- 
tial influence in all the characteristic and habitual func- 
tions that enter into the total growth of self-consciousness 
and of a conception of Self. The control of this mechan- 
ism for the realization of practical ends involves the 
training of the faculties of sense-perception, of judgment, 
and of will. The sexual differences are thus made to 
reach all the way from the " feeling-deftness " of the femi- 
nine type as compared with the superior tactual discrimi- 
nation and muscular precision of man, to those abstract 
conceptions of space in which Lotze thinks that the two 
sexes differ so widely. 

There is sufficient ground for the popular impression 
that the sexes differ characteristically in respect of the 
emotional and sentimental factors of the conscious states ; 
and this difference, too, can in a measure be referred to a 
difference in the bodily organism. It has already been 
said that the feminine temperament is more especially 



TYPES OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 383 

sanguine or sentimental ; the masculine more probably 
choleric or phlegmatic. There are, however, marked in- 
stances of all the four kinds of temperament to be dis- 
covered in both sexes. As a rule, the sexual differences 
interpenetrate the different temperaments; so that the 
sanguine man differs from the sanguine woman, the chol- 
eric man from the choleric woman, etc. It is undoubtedly 
among males of a sanguine or sentimental temperament 
that most womanish men are to be found ; and it is mascu- 
line women that are more likely to be choleric or phleg- 
matic in temperament. Such differences as these are 
plainly, to a large extent, characterized by the habitual 
forms of emotion and sentiment. It is to literature, and 
especially to poetry and the novel, that we must go for 
the more satisfactory descriptions of the sexual differ- 
ences in all those forms of the life of feeling which both 
sexes share in common. For such descriptions are rather 
matters of art than of science. 

The psychologist can scarcely discuss the question of 
differences of sex, in respect of the higher intellectual 
faculties and the life of conduct, — unless, indeed, he takes 
his psychological insight into the reading of history and 
biography, and into the general questions of ethics, anthro- 
pology, and the evolution of society. Here, in our judg- 
ment, the conviction will be deepened and enlarged, that 
what has thus far been found true in science, philosophy, 
and art, will continue essentially unchanged for a long 
time to come. In these spheres the differences of man 
and woman,, in the amount of productive activity and 
in the characteristics of the work produced, will proba- 
bly undergo no essential alteration. The forces which 
result in these differences lie too deep to be " trained out " 
of the race. They themselves set the conditions, and they 
should be followed as the guides of all the process of train- 
ing. What faculties are "higher," and what conduct is 



384 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

morally "better," constitute preliminary inquiries into 
which descriptive psychology is not bound to enter. 

We wish, however, to record our protest against the heat and preju- 
dice which render it so difficult to secure any satisfactory discussion of 
the so-called " woman question " from competent sources. We wish 
also to express the belief that, both on the physiological and on the 
psychological side, the differences between the two sexes are minute 
and influential, and that they pervade the entire psycho-physical con- 
stitution. The proposal to train away these differences, or greatly to 
alter them by changing the environment, we consider vain and foolish. 
The distinction in sex pervades every form of life ; it is itself a dis- 
tinction on which the most fundamental biological differences are 
based. 

Differences of Age. — All the previous descriptions of 
the book have taken the matter of age largely into ac- 
count. This belonged of necessity to our study of mental 
life as a development. It has been characteristic of all 
this study, however, to recognize that the birth of mind 
cannot be observed as can the birth of the body. Neither 
is there a scientific embryology of the mind as there is 
of the unhatched chick, or even of the pre-natal human 
organism. And after the stream of consciousness has 
begun visibly to flow, with the observer's eye directed 
in scientific curiosity upon it, its marked periods — the 
epochal minutes, or hours, or days — cannot be satisfac- 
torily traced by the psychologist. 

The psychology of infancy and of childhood is becoming 
an increasingly prominent branch of the general science of 
mind. It requires, for even the most moderate success, 
a much higher order of talent and a more complete equip- 
ment of knowledge, than can ordinarily be secured for it. 
As yet, the additions that have been made in this way to 
the sum of those truths, which can claim a valid and secure 
place in the science of psychology, are very few. 

We cannot enter upon the detailed description of those 
differences in the conscious processes which are character- 



TYPES OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 385 

istic of the different ages. The following general truths 
should, however, be borne in mind : (1) The organs of the 
nervous system of the infant, especially the end-organs of 
sense and the higher central organs, are, at birth, devel- 
oped far in advance of any corresponding psychical de- 
velopment. Their condition is not expressive of mental 
processes that have been ; nor are their functions exact 
correlates of what is. In its constitution and functions the 
nervous system of the newly born human being is prophetic 
of what is to come. (2) The earlier conscious processes of 
the infant are mainly of the impulsive and instinctive order. 
They are the functioning of a psychical mechanism which is 
dependent upon the excitement of the sensory-motor centres 
of the brain. But (3) from the earliest dawn of conscious- 
ness discriminating attention is at its organizing work. It 
is fitfully and feebly, but none the less surely, beginning 
the wonderful task of forming those faculties which, in 
their organic relations and growth, constitute a human 
mind. (4) Inasmuch, then, as we cannot get this pro- 
gressive organization of mentality out of the confused and 
chaotic material of sensation and representation, and yet 
can never put our finger upon the moment when what we 
call mind begins to be, we are obliged to assume it as a 
principle operative from the beginning. The psychologist 
cannot say : " Look, just now, and there ; and you will 
note the first beginning of a human mind." He can only 
say, in acknowledgment of the limits of all his descrip- 
tive and explanatory history of the mental processes : 
11 In the beginning was Mind, already equipped to receive 
sense-impressions, to attend, to discriminate, to feel, to form 
its own facidties of the more complex and higher sort.'''' 

Differences of Race. — We have just referred to the at- 
tempt to ascribe different temperaments, as characteristic 
to the different races of men. That this, and all similar 
attempts have some sure basis in facts of experience, there 



386 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

is no good reason to doubt. The truth is of interest to 
psychology of the most general kind, as showing how 
diversified are the types of development of which human 
"nature" is capable. But the applications of this truth 
belong to the field of comparative or race psychology. 

It has already been said that we can scarcely speak of 
" laws " as ruling over the mental development, in the 
same meaning in which we apply such a phrase to the 
scientific determination of the behavior of things. But 
then, biology is not as yet prepared to match physics or 
chemistry with a show of general formulas that are made 
with the same approximation to exactness, and that may 
be stated in unmistakable mathematical terms. And 
psychology is a biological science. It aims at the descrip- 
tive and orderly history of a peculiar form of life. The 
special reasons for excusing its confessed inability to lay 
down such general and inexorable laws have been repeat- 
edly indicated. 

When, then, we are reminded that " psychology is still 
in the condition of chemistry before Lavoisier," there is 
no need to be greatly depressed. There is little ground 
to expect the rise of a Newton or a Copernicus to deliver 
psj^chology from this " unscientific " condition. So far 
as the natural differences between this science and astron- 
omy, or physics, or chemistry, extend, — and this is very 
far, — we shall probably have to remain content with our 
inability to lay down laws in psychology resembling those 
of the more "exact sciences." 

Four general principles have already been announced 
as applying to the total course of mental development. 
Among them we consider, first, — 

The Principle of Continuity. — ■ A look back over the course 
followed in our study of the phenomena of consciousness 
discloses the following principle : In the mental life re- 



PBINCIPLES OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 387 

garded as a development, no breaks or sudden leaps are 
found, whether as between its processes and so-called facul- 
ties, or between the successive states and stages of this devel- 
opment. 

This principle of continuity applies to the different 
fundamental processes of the mental life. These processes 
may, indeed, be distinguished; they may even be consid- 
ered as separable factors of each individual complex state. 
But they all fall under the principle of continuity. The 
different classes of sensations show a tendency to arrange 
themselves in "scales," in which shades of quality merge 
into each other, so that the distinctions are not absolute. 
This is especially marked in the senses of sight, hearing, 
and touch; but suggestions of it are not wanting in taste 
and smell, as analyzed by modern experimental methods. 
In all the psychological doctrine of the intensity of sensa- 
tions, it is the "differential" unit, the "least perceptible 
difference," the nicety of the grading of the quantity, 
which is the important thing. All kinds of sensations, 
as respects their quantity, may be arranged in continuous 
series, the different members of which are experienced as 
contiguous. 

Turning to the aspect of feeling, we are met with the 
apparently irreconcilable opposition between pleasure and 
pain. Here, however, the continuous character of the 
scale of intensity helps to soften the opposition. More- 
over, the primary forms of emotion shade into one another 
by almost imperceptible degrees. In the more complex 
emotional conditions, the presence of common and char- 
acteristically like elements of "bodily resonance " forms 
another class of connecting links. While of the higher 
and purer forms of sentiment we are often unable to say 
whether they are most properly classed as intellectual, or 
sesthetical, or ethical, or religious. 

In treating of the development of mental life we recog- 



388 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

nize the important distinctions involved in the doctrine 
of so-called faculties. But one of the most valuable 
results of psychological analysis is to show the presence 
of all the elementary processes in the formation of the 
faculties themselves, — although in various combinations 
and degrees of perfect blending. Perception, for exam- 
ple, cannot be accomplished without involving ideation, 
feeling, memory, discrimination, and conation. Some of 
these most elementary processes shade into each other 
in such manner that, as in the case of the biological dis- 
tinction between the plant and the animal, strict defi- 
nition fails us at the extreme limits. Between S, the 
sensation-original, and I, the image-representative, all 
degrees of life-likeness may be interpolated. 

We do, indeed, seem to reach a limit to the principle 
of continuity when we make the analysis of every mental 
state or process into intellection, feeling, and conation. 
Neither of these aspects of mentality can be reduced to the 
other, or made precisely continuous with the other. Yet 
we are at once reminded of the fact that, until about the 
time of Kant, it was customary to reduce the number of the 
"faculties" to two; and that, since Kant, the Herbartian 
school has given currency to a theory of psychology which 
would bring feeling and will under terms of the one faculty 
of the "forth-putting of ideas." The psychologist who 
remains faithful to the facts of consciousness cannot, it 
seems to us, adopt either of these forms of the denial of 
the threefold nature of mentality. On the other hand, he 
must not emphasize this three-foldness so as to destroy 
the unity of consciousness. And this fundamental fact 
of a unity which somehow lies back of all possibility of 
analysis into faculties, and which makes even the " split- 
ting off" which occurs in double consciousness possible, 
itself illustrates the very principle of continuity. Nay : it 
is this principle of continuity which has been traced to its 



PRINCIPLES OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 389 

origin in the actual, continuous activity and development 
of the one mind, functioning in its uniquely characteristic, 
three-fold way. 

For, finally, the nature of all mental development illus- 
trates and enforces the principle of continuity. What 
every mind experiences and grows into is not adequately 
to be described in terms of any number of functions, or 
faculties, regarded merely as functions and faculties. Its 
full significance is told only when it is recognized as the 
continuous development of a being which comes to know 
itself as a Soul or Mind. 

The Principle of Relativity. — Closely connected with 
the foregoing principle is another, which may be stated 
somewhat as follows : The character of every individual 
process, whether elementary or complex, and of every form of 
mental life, is dependent upon its relation to other processes 
and forms of the same mental life. 

The psychological principle of relativity must not be 
confounded with the metaphysical proposition, " To be is 
to be related " (Lotze), or with the theory that every con- 
scious presentation is " essentially nothing but " a transi- 
tion or difference (Bain). The principle means rather 
that no conscious process can be faithfully and fully de- 
scribed — what it actually is, and what it is worth, esti- 
mated and set forth — without reference to its place and 
its connections in the stream of consciousness. Mental 
states cannot be taken out of their relations to the life of 
the one Subject of them all. Although it is the task of 
the psychologist to consider these conscious states, " as 
such," they are never, in fact, mere states ; they are 
always somebody's states, and are what they are, as related 
to other states of the same mind. The proofs of this 
principle are to be derived from all departments of psy- 
chology and from each example under each department. 
The psychologist's analysis resolves the mental life into 



390 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

a series of relatively simple and self-existent processes, 
whose characteristics he proceeds to investigate : but the 
real mental life is not so. The processes which he labels 
A, B, C, etc., are never, in fact, abstract and independently 
existent; they are A, B, C, etc., instead of A v B v C v etc., 
or A x , A y , A z , etc., always and only in dependence upon 
the relations they sustain to the whole alphabet of that 
particular mind's experience. 

Of each particular mental process, or conscious state, it 
must also be held that its peculiar characteristics are de- 
pendent upon the relation it sustains to the most nearly 
contiguous processes, or states. 

This principle of relativity has been much misunderstood and fre- 
quently misstated. In the form which resolves all mental presenta- 
tions into " nothing but " consciousness of difference, we agree with 
Dr. Ward in finding it unsatisfactory. But when this writer goes 
on to say that " in passing from the scent of a rose to the sound of a 
gong or the sting of a bee, we have no means of bringing the two 
into relation," he seems to us not faithful to the actual facts of mental 
life. The truth of fact is rather that the character of one's previous 
absorption in the scent of the rose would largely determine the per- 
ception of the sound or feeling of the pain of the bee's sting. So, 
too, when Dr. Ward remarks that " a letter-sorter who identifies an 
ounce or two ounces with remarkable exactness identifies each for 
itself and not the first as half the second," he states in an inadequate 
way a psychical fact which illustrates the very principle against which 
he is contending. For this " identification " is a complex psychical act 
of sensation and discrimination, every factor of which falls under the 
principle of relativity. The identification, psychically considered, is the 
conscious relating of a felt sensation to a vaguely discerned memory- 
image of previous sensory experiences. 

Bringing these two principles together we may say that 
the true picture of a mental life is that of a continuum (or 
" stream ") of interdependent psychoses. This is nearly 
equivalent to saying that every mind is known as an 
actual development. The very nature of this development 
makes the successive states dependently related. 



PRINCIPLES OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 391 

The Principle of Solidarity. — When, however, the entire 
mental life, regarded as an actual development, is taken 
into the account, we find it showing a constantly increas- 
ing tendency toward what may properly be designated as 
a " solidarity " of experience. In general the plasticity 
of the earlier stages of the mental development is lost ; 
the characteristics of the prevalent psychoses become 
more definitely fixed; the reign of habit is extended. 
All this leads to the recognition of the following truth : 
The effect of every partial or complete ivorking of the psycho- 
physical mechanism is felt upon the character of the entire 
development of the mind; and this development necessarily 
tends towards some kind of unification. 

It is customary for psychologists to recognize a so-called 
"law of habit." But it represents the truth of experi- 
ence better to say that the formation of a system of habits 
is both a primal necessity and also the resultant of the 
cooperation of the most fundamental principles, of both 
the bodily and the mental development. " Habit " is not 
a word to be applied to any one law ; it is the essential 
idea implied in all psycho-physical laws. 

In understanding the principle of solidarity these three 
classes of facts must be taken into account : (1) Every 
form of organic or more purely psychical activity, having 
once occurred, is more likely to recur again. The fre- 
quency of repetition, taken into relation with other habitual 
forms of action, measures in a rough way the strength of 
the tendency, or disposition, to act in a similar way. 

But (2) profound changes in the conscious states accom- 
pany the frequent recurrence of any form of organic or 
more purely psychical activity. Of these changes may be 
noted (a) the modifications of the accompanying feelings 
which take place. Frequently repeated organic processes 
come to be differently felt, or not to be felt at all, when 
they recur. For (b~) a decrease in conscious attention, and 



392 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

in the hesitation which such attention often occasions, fol- 
lows upon the frequent repetition of any form of the 
psycho-physical life. Yet (<?) promptness and accuracy 
increase, as the necessity for conscious attention and dis- 
crimination decreases. The whole affair comes to be organ- 
ized into the psycho-physical mechanism. But (cT) even 
where the habitual activity does not become quite purely 
mechanical, the process of ideation and of thinking which 
leads up to the movement becomes more automatic and 
greatly condensed. 

Thus (3) the relation of the principle of solidarity to 
the formation of character, and to the culture and satis- 
faction of the higher ethical and sesthetical sentiments, is 
most important. From the point of view of the " willing " 
mind, we may speak of "forming" and "having habits." 
From the point of view of this principle, we seem com- 
pelled to speak of habits as "having " and " holding " us. 

For our weal or for our woe, whether as we will or as 
we would not, it makes no difference with this inexorable 
principle. A sort of solidarity, or unification of mental 
development, inevitably results from its never ceasing 
application to the life of the body and of the mind. 

In all that has been said about the physiological conditions of the 
different classes of conscious processes, the principle under which 
habits are formed has been illustrated. The cerebral conditions of 
ideation, as ideation enters into all mental development, show how 
the brain of the infant necessarily parts with its original plasticity. 
The entire psychological doctrine of the formation of faculty — the 
learning to know anything, to think to any purpose, to form and carry 
out any plan, or to execute any movement — implies the universal 
application of this same principle. There is abundant experience — 
sometimes pleasant and encouraging, and sometimes sad and dis- 
couraging — to show us all how deeply set into the psycho-physical 
organism, and into the very structure of the soul, our habits become. 

The Principle of Teleological Import. — The different forms 
of bodily and mental activity, so far as we can study them 



PRINCIPLES OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 893 

separately, show the principle of final purpose as ruling, 
more or less constantly and completely, over them all. 
We are not now speaking of any doubtful metaphysical 
theory. We are taking rather the biological point of 
view, as it falls to the scientific student of this particu- 
lar form of life. In some sort, the different forms of psy- 
chical processes constitute an organism; and activity to some 
purpose is the ruling principle of mental development. 

If the principle of final purpose were not observed in 
the construction of what we call the mind, and in the 
combination and development of those activities which 
psychology recognizes as belonging to the stream of con- 
sciousness, no development could possibly take place. To 
take one example of what admits of an indefinite amount 
of illustration, — if the impulsive and instinctive move- 
ments of the infant did not serve the purpose, not only 
of keeping alive its physical organism but also of stimu- 
lating, guiding, and developing the life of ideation and 
thought, no intellectual growth would be possible. And, 
indeed, every special kind of a psychical process can be 
understood only as it fits in with the others and con- 
tributes to a sort of unity. 

But man differs from all the other animals in the large- 
ness of the part which he, as the conscious subject of 
states, takes in his own development. The self-conscious, 
intelligent adoption of plans, and the selection of means, 
is the acme of his superiority, as a willing mind. These 
plans may include the control of his entire life in relation 
to consciously accepted ideals of an sesthetical or ethical 
kind. Thus he may become aware of an import to his 
entire mental development which reaches far beyond that 
development itself. 

It is a combination of the principles of continuity, 
relativity, solidarity, and teleological import, which se- 
cures for every stream of human consciousness the unique 



394 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

and characteristic development belonging to a Soul, or 
Mind. 

[Xo single volumes can be referred to, which treat of all the topics 
included in this chapter. The following works may, however, be con- 
sulted in this connection. Wundt : Human and Animal Psychology; 
Lloyd Morgan: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology; Ellis: 
Man and Woman; Mantegazza: Physiognomy and Expression; 
Preyer : The Mind of the Child, Parts I and II ; Perez : Psycholo- 
gie de l'Enfant. On the last topics, see the author's Philosophy of 
Mind.] 



CHAPTER XIX 

BODY AND MIND 

On starting the examination of mental phenomena, 
which is now about to be concluded, it was said (see p. 
4 f.) that certain assumptions must, of necessity, be made 
by the psychologist. These assumptions were partly such 
as are common to all students of every science, — namely, 
the possibility of knowledge, the existence of things to be 
known, and the general laws of thought as they apply to 
all investigation of truth, etc. Some of these assumptions, 
however, were more special to the work of the psycholo- 
gist. Perhaps it is among the latter class that we should 
place the truth, at first taken for granted, which it is now 
proposed to submit to a brief work of revision. It may 
be summed up as follows: Psychology assumes the exis- 
tence of the human body, as acted upon by things, the reality 
of the mind, and the actuality of causal relations between 
the two. 

Analysis of the Assumption of Body and Mind. — The truth 
which it has just been said is taken for granted by the 
student of the science of psychology, is by no means so 
simple as it appears. On the contrary, it is a very com- 
plex affair. The subordinate conceptions and principles, 
which are taken for granted as parts of the total assump- 
tion, may be sufficiently brought out by a not difficult act 
of analysis. For example : (1) It is assumed that a thing 
called " the body " exists, which is in some distinct way 
separable from other things, and also separable — at least 
in thought — from the existence called "mind"; (2) it is 
assumed that this body, while it must not be identified 



396 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

with other things, is influenced or acted upon by them ; 
(3) it is also assumed that, in some valid meaning of the 
adjective, the mind is a real existence ; and (4) it is as- 
sumed that actual relations exist between these two exist- 
ences, — between the body and the mind. 

If it were proposed to make a thorough critical work 
of investigating this mass of assumptions, we should find 
ourselves involved in an extended treatise on metaphysics. 
Every one of the principal " categories " would have to be 
treated from the t beginning ; — its origin discussed, its 
validity tested, its compatibility with its allied categories 
examined. For surely here they all are : Being, Exis- 
tence, Relation, Action, Change, Force, Cause, Law, etc. 
Now, inasmuch as the work of systematic metaphysics 
does not belong to the student of " mental phenomena, as 
such," we must refrain from the pursuit of the alluring 
speculations which psychology opens before us. But it 
is well to remember that the assumption itself is not put 
into the facts by the student of psychology ; it is found in 
the facts, as a complex of cognitions and beliefs observed 
to be operative in the case of all adult minds. 

The crude and uncritical form of the complex assump- 
tion of Body and Mind, — both real existences, — and of 
actual relations between them (as well as of relations 
between the latter and things in general, through the for- 
mer) is sometimes called "Natural Dualism." It is the 
popular and unscientific view. In our judgment, how- 
ever, this view is not essentially modified, nor in the very 
slightest degree discredited, by the most strictly scientific 
psychology. Such a psychology does three things, chiefly, 
for the assumption : (1) It directly contributes to the 
formation of a scientific conception of mind ; (2) it in- 
directly assists in clearing up and enlarging some points 
in the scientific conception of the body ; and (3) it inves- 
tigates, and formulates in detail, the relations found to 



BODY AND ITS RELATIONS 397 

be actually existing between the body and the mind. 
What it is to be an actual existence ; In what the unity 
of the mind consists, and how we are to understand and 
vindicate its reality ; What it is to be causally (or other- 
wise) related, etc., — these are the very questions with 
which metaphysics delights to busy itself. And these 
questions the psychologist must hand over to the comba- 
tants in the arena which is constructed for them. 

The task of a scientific psychology is scarcely finished, 
however, until it has viewed again its own very complex 
but fundamental assumption. Especially appropriate does 
it seem to consider briefly the character of those relations 
between the body and the mind with which, as a large 
part of its own special field of investigation, modern psy- 
chology is accustomed to deal. But the character of these 
relations is largely dependent upon the conceptions which 
are formed of the two terms that enter into the relations. 
These are the Body and the Mind. We consider, then, 
first : — 

The Conception of Body. — It has already been shown 
(p. 312 f.) how the average adult makes that "bi-partition " 
of all his complex experience which leads him to form the 
conception of his own body. The process results in his 
" splitting off " this particular thing from other things 
which do not in like manner belong to the "Self." And 
the continuance of the same process results in a further 
separation of a more subtile and limited kind ; this is the 
" splitting off " of the body, regarded as itself a sort of 
thing fronv the Mind, or from the thinking, willing, and 
knowing Self. The popular conception of the body, as 
this conception is then constituted, has its basis in percep- 
tions of sight, touch, and organic sensations ; it is formed 
by precisely the same active process of primary intellec- 
tion extended to logical thinking which is necessary for 
the formation of any conception. We may conclude, then, 



398 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

that the " common-sense " notion of one's own body is, as 
respects both the elements of experience which enter it and 
the method of its formation, essentially the same as the 
notion of any other material thing. 

Of course, there enter into the popular conception many more or less 
interesting bits of information (mostly of misinformation) which are 
current respecting the real nature of that particular thing called "the 
human body." Such factors are — some of them — now-a-days so 
early and persistently taught to every educated child that they come 
to seem a part of his most essential conception of his own body. 
This is especially true of the current notions respecting the brain and 
nervous system. But it must not be forgotten that the most acutely 
observing and reflective human consciousness, if unaided by the 
results of a complex and historical development of science, could 
never even discover that any particular relation exists between the 
nerve-mass and mental development. Aristotle did not suspect this, 
although he was the son of a physician and had himself made many 
observations of dissected animals. So far as the "plain man's con- 
sciousness " of his own body separates it from the sentient Self, it 
is made of essentially the same kind of "stuff" as that of which 
other things are made. 

But the scientific conception of the human body is a 
very different affair from the current natural conception. 
And if one inquire, What is the human body really known 
to be, by the most enlightened intelligences? one must go 
to physics, chemistry, biology, human anatomy and phys- 
iology, — especially to the histology and physiology of 
the nervous system, — for the answer. This answer, fully 
given or even imperfectly sketched, would require vol- 
umes. And although it would be found that much of 
these sciences is 'psychology in disguise, the latter science 
cannot enter into so extended a search after a satisfactory 
answer to its own inquiry. 

The modern scientific conception of a human body may 
be, however, sufficiently summed up for our present pur- 
pose in the following sentence : By " the body " is under- 
stood a system of physical elements, which, under exceedingly 



BODY AND ITS RELATIONS 399 

complex and obscure influences from internal forces and as 
modified by the action of their environment, attain temporarily 
a certain morphological and physiological unity, and go 
through a peculiar course of development. Something like 
this summary is doubtless demanded by the discoveries of 
modern science. Psychologists and philosophers would 
do well to bear it in mind when they are discussing the 
relations of mind and body. 

Relations of the Body to External Nature. — A brief refer- 
ence to the foregoing statement of the scientific concep- 
tion of body shows that this statement makes the body an 
inseparable part of its physical environment. It appears, 
indeed, to the child and to the savage, and in a modified 
way to us all, as an inseparable part of the real Self. 
(Comp. p. 318 f.) But as science is bound to regard it, the 
body is an inseparable part of that Nature to ivhich we in 
our developed cognition oppose the Self. It is always the 
product, the construction, the child, the vehicle, — an 
actual portion that cannot be disjoined — of the great 
world of physical existences and natural forces. 

The truth of the statement just made will appear at 
once more clearly, if we analyze the scientific conception 
of the body, Thus : — (1) Its elements are physical — 
the same kind of minute beings that compose the mass, 
or so-called " substance " of other things (oxygen, hydro- 
gen, etc., and their compounds) ; (2) they are originally 
brought together into a system under the influence of 
certain very complex and obscure internal forces, physico- 
chemical and biological (among these, all that is vaguely 
included under "heredity," "variability," etc.); (3) 
they are modified constantly by the environment (includ- 
ing every force external to the body, from the sur- 
roundings of the first germ plasm to those of the adult 
organism) ; (4) the unity of the body is only morpho- 
logical and physiological, and consists in a rather loose 



400 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

and shifty adherence to a typical form and to a com- 
munity of functioning ; but (5) this unity is only tem- 
porary, and all the physical elements soon return from 
their systematic arrangement in the one body to other 
connections with that Nature to which they all belong. 

It seems to us the more necessary to insist upon all this, because 
certain theories have emphasized some sort of a unity between body 
and mind at the expense of the undoubted unity which exists between 
the body and Nature at large. "We call it "ours," to be sure; but it 
is only a temporary loan, which is constantly being called in piece- 
meal ; and which may be all called in at any time. Lotze's figure of 
speech, which compares the human organism to a little whirlpool set 
up for a brief time in the great stream of natural forces, gives us the 
true thought in much better accord with scientific facts than do these 
theories. The linking of what we call our body to its environment 
is the pertinent and permanent thing upon which modern science 
has a right to insist, and which it is able to describe in detail. As to 
the more precise nature, or even the general fact, of its linking to the 
stream of consciousness, modern science has little beyond unproved 
conjectures to offer. The physico-chemical and biological science of 
the human body and nature is a highly elaborate and relatively trust- 
worthy affair. The psycho-physical science of body and mind is yet 
in its infancy, if indeed it can fairly be said to have been born. 

As to the more specific relations in which the human 
body stands to Nature at large, all that is necessary for 
so brief a psychological treatment has already been said. 
The various sciences from which the conception of body 
is derived have each their information to contribute. 
Some of this information has been drawn upon at almost 
every point in our study ; — this, wherever it has been 
shown how external things act upon the organism so as 
to get themselves perceived, or so as to excite our feelings 
in pleasurable or painful ways, or so as themselves to call 
out and be modified by our voluntary movements. All 
this helps to form the picture of a complex physical 
structure which is constantly being stimulated to a great 



MIND AND ITS RELATIONS 401 

variety of reactions, that occur in response to the action 
upon it of a great variety of physico-chemical forces. 

We turn now to consider in a word — 

The Conception of Mind. — In some sort every psycho- 
logical study, even of the most inconsiderable of mental 
phenomena, contributes toward the formation of a true 
conception of the nature of the human mind. How this 
conception develops and what it really comes to be for 
the average unscientific man, has been indicated in a 
preceding chapter (chap. XV). The fuller critical and 
reflective discussion of this conception belongs to philoso- 
phy. For such a discussion the student may be referred 
to the author's Philosophy of Mind (especially the chap- 
ter on "The Concept of Mind"). Here again we must 
content ourselves with a brief summary of what the 
appropriate science authorizes as the true content of this 
conception. It may be stated approximately in some such 
sentence as follows : By " the mind " is understood the 
Subject of a conscious development which characterizes itself 
as a unitary being having its peculiar, self-known modes of 
behavior — self-consciousness, memory, thought, voluntary 
action, etc., or the different forms of the so-called faculties 
of Intellect, Feeling, and Will. 

Now if this conception be analyzed, we find that it, 
like the scientific conception of the body, contains no 
little metaphysics which may need further reflective con- 
sideration. But so much at least of metaphysics seems 
necessary in order to state, even in the most non-meta- 
physical way^, all the important contents of the conception. 
These contents may be itemized somewhat as follows : 
(1) The mind knows itself as in some sort really exist- 
ing ; (2) it knows itself as in some sort a unity ; (3) it 
is certainly subject to a course of conscious development 
which, in thought at least, is quite distinctly separable 
from that course of development through which the phy- 



402 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

sical elements, called the body, are passing ; and (4) it 
knows its own characteristic modes of behavior and attrib- 
utes them to itself as its own powers, activities, faculties. 
All this has been both implied and abundantly proved in 
all our previous study of the actual development of the 
mental life. Every chapter in the book, and every chapter 
in every book on psychology that ever was written or ever 
will be written, assumes and validates substantially the 
same conception. We cannot narrow the sphere or con- 
tract the results of psychological study so as to exclude 
the important factors of this conception of mind. The 
" old psychology " was, of course, full of it ; but the " new 
psychology" cannot get rid of it. Psychology as a so- 
called "natural science" takes for granted thus much of 
metaphysics ; and the baldest and most agnostic solipsism 
cannot take much less for granted. 

But body and mind — these two beings, thus conceived 
of as " two " — are related. This fact of relation psychol- 
ogy both implies and continually, by the results of its in- 
vestigations, extends and strengthens in its applications. 

General Fact of Relations between Body and Mind. — Noth- 
ing is more firmly woven into the texture of experience 
than this conviction, this manifold knowledge, that what 
we call " our body " and what we call " our mind " are not 
indifferent to each other. On the contrary, so intimately 
related are the two in our system of perceptions and 
thoughts, that we call them both alike "our own." Thus 
it is difficult for any individual even to imagine how he 
would manage or use another individual's body, if his own 
mind were (to speak popularly) in that other body ; or 
what changes his own so-called mind — his conscious 
development would undergo, if it were to be all at once 
" affected " with an exchange of his body with some other 
person's body. 

It should further be noted that the general relation in 



MIND AND ITS RELATIONS 403 

which all men believe their bodies and minds to be stand- 
ing toward each other is that called " causal." What it is 
to be related, and What it is to be a cause, are questions 
for metaphysics to undertake. Metaphysicians have no 
small difficulty, and no cool contention, in wrestling with 
these questions. Especially in considering the latter of 
the two, does theoretical psychology come against the 
physical conception of causation as embodied in the mod- 
ern hypothesis of the conservation and correlation of 
energy. 

Something has already been said, in the name of a scien- 
tific psychology, about the origin and nature of the con- 
ception of the causal relation (see p. 304 f.). 1 It is enough 
for our present purpose to add that it is just this causal 
relation, and no other, which is assumed to apply to the 
case of mind and body, by all common-sense experience 
and by all scientific and philosophical theory. 

The use of words such as "influence," "induce," "occasion," "con- 
comitant," " correlation," " parallelism," etc., does not in the least 
explain, but only obscures the facts, unless by these words essentially 
one and the same thing be meant. No psychology or philosophy of 
mind will ever be written that will be able to consider the relations of 
body and mind as otherwise than virtually causal. The reason for 
this necessity lies in the very nature of the mind itself and in the un- 
changing laws of its development. The conception of causation — 
although, or rather perhaps because, it is a very complex and some- 
what shifty conception — is the category under which our experience of 
tody and mind develops, divides itself, and then binds itself together again 
in higher and more rational forms. It is reflexion upon the experience 
of the two, as standing perpetually in this relation, which chiefly 
results in, and gives life-likeness and actuality to, the abstract concep- 
tion of causation itself. 

Another important point to notice concerns the recipro- 
cal nature of the relation between body and mind. From 

1 For more detailed philosophical discussion of this conception, see the 
author's Philosophy of Mind (pp. 212 1; 2231; 2301) and Philosophy 
of Knowledge (passim). 



404 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

the point of view of ordinary experience and of science 
alike, it is just as apparently true that the mind causes 
changes in the bodily organism as that this organism af- 
fects the mental processes. Not only the phenomena of 
voluntary movement and the direction of attention, but 
also those which emphasize the tendency of every process 
of ideation and feeling to realize itself in the motor organ- 
ism, come in evidence here. 

Particular Forms of Relation between Body and Mind. — 
To mention in detail the particular relations which exist 
between the excitement of the organs of the body, and 
the modifications of the stream of consciousness, would 
require us to pass in review the whole of psychology. 
The five following great groups of correlations between 
body and mind will serve, however, to summarize the 
facts which our study of the mental life and of its de- 
velopment has already discovered: (1) The quality and 
the intensity of the sense-element in our experience is cor- 
related with the condition of the nervous system as acted 
upon by its appropriate stimuli. From the one point of 
view we may say that the precise character and amount 
of our sensations depends upon the stimulation of the 
organs of sense, the conveyance of the effects of this stim- 
ulation to the central organs, and the kind and amount 
of nerve-changes originated there. From the other point 
of view we may say that the resulting sensations, and 
presumably the nerve-changes that form the basis of these 
sensations, are determined by our conscious, selective 
attention. 

(2) The combination of our conscious experiences is cor- 
related with the combination of the impressions made upon 
the nervous system. Here again, from one point of view, 
we must say that the order and time-rate of the phenomena 
of consciousness depend upon the succession and duration 
of the stimuli applied to the bodily organism. But from 



MIND AND ITS RELATIONS 405 

the other point of view we must say, that the focusing 
and distribution of attention, and the voluntary movements 
of our organism, determine the succession and duration of 
those nerve-changes which the external stimuli occasion. 

(3) The phenomena of representative consciousness, as 
"recollection" and "memory" are correlated with the 
" dynamical associations " that have come to be effected 
between the different portions of the body, — especially the 
elements of the central nervous system. But here, yet again, 
if we are faithful to all the facts, we are obliged to regard 
both the dependence of consciousness on the acquired, 
habitual reactions of the bodily organism, and also the 
dependence of those reactions on our conscious and volun- 
tary pursuit of certain ideas in preference to others, and 
for selected practical ends. 

(4) The trains of association and of conceptual thinking 
are somehow correlated tvith the condition of the bodily 
organism, — especially of the centres of the brain. The 
nature and limits of this correlation are, indeed, even 
more obscure than any of the three foregoing forms of 
relation have been found to be. From the point of view 
of self-consciousness, the indications of this correlation 
come through our experience of the difficulty of thinking 
and imagining as we will, under certain bodily conditions; 
and also through our equally undoubted experience of 
determining the trains of imagination and of conceptual 
thinking, as we wish or will to have them — and often in 
accordance with carefully selected ideas of what they 
should be. 

(5) The constitution and development of the bodily 
organism is correlated with the original mental disposition 
and with the mental development. Here too, finally, what 
has already been said in all the latter portion of our work, 
and especially in the last two chapters, must afford a 
warrant for our conclusion. 



406 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

The recognition of such forms of correlation between 
the body and the mind in no respects contradicts what we 
were forced to admit under the general head just preced- 
ing. The science of the human body links it firmly into 
a unity with that nature of which it is always a part. 
These rather loosely conceived forms of interaction be- 
tween this body and that stream of consciousness we call 
the Self, or mind, do not constitute anything similar; they 
do not amount to a science uniting two species of objects 
under one class or kind. 

Mind and Brain. — Modern science has done nothing to 
invalidate the general fact of relation between body and 
mind ; it has done nothing to alter essentially the concep- 
tion which we must hold of the general character of these 
relations. But it has made one most startling discovery ; 
and it lias apparently demonstrated, so that it can never 
again be thrown into doubt, the truth of this discovery. 
This discovery is the special and even unique character 
of the relations which exist, in man's case, between the 
nervous system — above all and most directly, the brain 
— and the stream of consciousness. Whatever may be 
true of the plants and of some of the lower animals — 
and here we find room for almost indefinite and yet fruit- 
less conjecture — it is in mans case the brain which stands 
related to the development of his mental life, in the most 
direct, important, and entirely unique way. 

The proof of the statement just made is no less than the 
entire modern science of the physiology of the nervous 
system and the allied science of physiological psychology, 
in the more restricted meaning of the latter term. 

The dependence of conscious states on the functioning of the brain 
is so much a matter of academical instruction, and even of wide- 
spreading popular impression at the present time, that one is tempted 
to forget how very recent and complicated and entangled with many 
abstruse problems this conclusion really is. Whatever may be thought 



RELATIONS OF BRAIN AND MIND 407 

of ancient impressions, and of long existing but shadowy claims, the 
science of the subject is a growth of the last twenty-five or thirty years. 

The modern scientific view of the assumptions involved 
in our most common and even constant experience has, 
therefore, changed the theme from a discussion of re- 
lations between a visible and tangible entity called " body," 
and an invisible and intangible entity called " mind," to a 
discussion of relations between functions of the cerebral 
substance and modifications in the stream of conscious- 
ness ; and vice versa. This change has both simplified 
and complicated the problem. It has made the problem 
simpler because, instead of having to consider a great 
variety of organs, with their peculiar forms of function- 
ing, in their varying relations to the conscious states, we 
may focus our attention and concentrate our researches 
upon this one organ (the brain) with its peculiar forms 
of functioning. But it has also made the problem more 
difficult and more complicated. For of all material struct- 
ures the brain is the most difficult to examine and to 
comprehend in terms of physics, chemistry, and biology. 

What it is doing when it is, so to speak, laying the 
basis for the changes in conscious states, is almost entirely 
hidden from direct observation. And so far as we are at 
all able to frame a conjectural notion of these, its unique 
forms of functioning, they appear thus far to baffle the 
united efforts of all the chemico-physical sciences to re- 
duce them to general principles. 

The tendencies to affect the science of psychology which have 
resulted from this modern discovery of the vast significance of the 
brain for mental development have taken two directions. They have 
led some to conclude that the only scientific psychology is psychology 
as a " natural science." And by calling psychology a natural science 
they mean to affirm that it is a biological science in a very special way. 
The only causes of conscious states at which we can come in a scien- 
tific way, they affirm, are brain states. If, then, we wish to arrive at 
psychological science, we must know where in the brain, what as a 



408 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

matter of chemical changes, and how associated, are the particular 
brain-commotions correlated with every kind of modification of con- 
sciousness. This fair vision of a deductive science, which shall be 
able to predict definite conscious states as the necessary consequences 
of brain states, hovers before some minds that have been captivated 
by the modern discovery. On the contrary, the hope excited by the 
modern discovery is met at once with the confession of the most 
expert investigators : There is no science of brain physiology. But if 
this be so, what faith can be placed at present in the conclusions of 
a so-called " natural science " of psychology ? 

It is not necessary to discuss again the nature of psychology, its 
method, and its claims to be received among the brotherhood of 
sciences. As a study of conscious states — their conditions, signifi- 
cance, and order in development — psychology regards the relations 
of brain and mind with intense interest but with a well-moderated 
attitude of reserve and of freedom. It desires to know what the 
modern theory of the brain and its functions can tell as to the con- 
ditions of mental development. But the fundamental questions as to 
the real relations between the doings of the physical organism and the 
changes in the stream of consciousness are not, for it, in any respect 
essentially changed. 

What is known of the most general relations of mind 
and brain may conveniently be considered under two 
heads : (1) There are certain relations which may fitly be 
spoken of as dynamical ; (2) there are others which may 
be referred to as more especially local. The simple facts 
are that " work " is done in the brain which, as respects 
its amount, specific quality, duration, and order of change, 
is correlated with changes in the intensity, quality, and 
time-rate of the conscious states. As to what the precise 
character of this work is, our present condition of infor- 
mation is very unsatisfactory. But again, whatever the 
chemico-physical character of the brain changes may be, 
we now know that their occurrence in different areas of 
the brain is somewhat specifically correlated with different 
kinds of conscious states. The one set of facts results in 
various rather vague forms of a " dynamical " theory of 
the relations of brain and mind. The other set of facts 



RELATIONS OP BRAIN AND MIND 409 

results in a body of knowledge, of growing definiteness 
and evidence, called the " localization of cerebral func- 
tion." 

Certain conclusions touching both these sets of relations 
between brain and mind will now be briefly presented. 

The Brain as a Physical Mechanism. — Some parts of 
the human body — as, for example, the arrangement of 
the bones of the skeleton, the structure of the heart, the 
refracting and transmitting media of the eye — are most 
obviously to be interpreted as applications of well-known 
principles in physics. With the brain the case is by no 
means precisely so. It is, indeed, a mass constituted out 
of an almost innumerable multitude of physical elements, 
that are arranged into groups, or organs, between which 
connecting tracts can frequently be traced. Levers, 
valves, elastic fibres, lenses, etc., are, however, wanting 
there. Nothing is arranged so as to suggest structural 
" permanency," or a strict mechanical " unity," " vibra- 
tions " originated or " propagated," secretions made and 
"distributed," or anything properly answering to other 
like words that have been so often and so thoughtlessly 
employed. Yet all the evidence goes to show that this 
soft, and apparently almost unorganized mass within the 
skull is a molecular mechanism of the most amazing com- 
plexity and versatility in function. The microscope has 
revealed much as to its structural complexity ; and physio- 
logical chemistry is doing effective work toward the 
discovery of the molecular and atomic changes which go 
on in this structure. 

The chemico-physical sciences give us some such picture 
as this of that molecular mechanism which is the human 
brain. There are countless millions of elements in its 
substance ; but they are, so far as its peculiar functions 
are concerned, all apparently of two types, — nerve-cells 
and nerve-fibres. These elements contain a large store 



410 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

of energy which has a highly complex and unstable 
chemical constitution. What is called their "excitement" 
consists in a sort of explosive or slow decomposition of 
these elements ; and this process sets free the stored 
energy, to be expended in part upon the excitement of 
adjoining elements. A sort of hierarchy, however, belongs 
to the nerve-elements of the brain. What goes on there 
makes itself felt through the entire nervous system ; and, 
also, by means of the lower parts of the nervous system, 
upon every area of the body to which the nerve-tracts 
run. Conversely, what happens in these parts of the 
nervous system outlying the brain, makes itself felt in 
the nerve-elements of the brain itself. 

Modern research has not as yet been able to bring the peculiar trans- 
actions of the nerve-elements of the brain into full accord with what 
the sciences of chemistry, electricity, thermo-dynamics, etc., know 
about the behavior of non-living things; or even of other forms of 
tissue which belong to other parts of the body. Even so simple a nerve- 
apparatus as that composed of a single nerve with a muscle attached, 
offers as yet unsolved problems to modern science. How much more 
the immensely complicated molecular structure of the brain ! And, 
then, each of its elements — and especially its full-grown cells — is 
capable of doing those wonderful things which amoeboid bodies can 
all do ; but among them all, perhaps most abundantly the nerve-cells 
of the human brain. 

The foregoing picture — vague and uncertain as it is 
in many of its features — serves to emphasize a number 
of important truths. When we are affected with sensa- 
tions, it is because the nerve-elements of the brain have 
been excited by nerve-commotions coming into its areas 
from the different organs of sense ; and the characteristic 
quality, the intensity, the time-rate of our sensory con- 
sciousness depend upon this excitement. Conversely, 
when we associate ideas and conduct trains of thinking, 
it is implied that the different areas of the brain are active 
in an associated or combined way. When we move our 



RELATIONS OF BRAIN AND MIND 411 

bodies, or any of their members, in a controlled and pur- 
poseful way, it is because the appropriate nerve-elements 
in the brain have responded to our ideas and volitions by 
doing the work of exciting the right muscles through the 
down-going nerve-tracts which connect them with these 
muscles. Thus the general work of the nervous system 
may be said to be that of equilibrating the interaction of 
the different parts of the body ; and the special office of 
the brain is to do this work in accordance with the con- 
ditions of a conscious, mental development. 

Moreover, the words which are so fitly but naively used to express 
the modifications in our dynamic consciousness — such as "stress," 
" effort," " fatigue," or being " used up," " gathering " and " outburst " 
and "lack" of energy, "summation," "interference," "inhibition," 
"ease" and "smoothness" or "hardness" and " roughness " of the 
time we are having, etc., — have their correlates in the dynamics of 
the brain. [For further details of the modern mechanical theory of 
the nervous system, see Part I of the author's Elements of Physio- 
logical Psychology, especially Chapter VII.] 

Proofs and Results of " Brain-Work." — Although, as 
has already been said, a full and precise account of the 
character of the work done in the human brain cannot be 
given, there are abundant proofs that work is done there, 
and that this work is correlated with mental work. Of 
these proofs the following four may be noticed : (1) A 
large amount of the arterial blood is used by the brain; 
and if this supply is cut off or corrupted, the work of the 
brain stops or is disturbed. This stoppage or disturbance 
shows itself in corresponding modifications of the stream 
of consciousness. It has been calculated that, although 
the weight of the adult's brain is only about one-forty -fifth 
of his whole body, the supply of blood used up in the brain 
is about one-eighth of the whole supply. (2) In general, 
the amount of mental work done — of what we call con- 
scious energy " expended " in thought or emotion — is 
measured by the amount of waste of tissue which results 



412 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

from the correlated brain-work. We know that ive have 
worked hard; and the careful measurement of the quantity 
of sulphates and phosphates excreted from the broken-down 
nerve-tissue, shows that the brain has been doing increased 
work. (3) The rise of temperature in the brain-mass which 
accompanies all excitement of the stream of consciousness 
seems to indicate plainly an increase of work done in the 
brain. This thermic disturbance is slightly different in 
the different areas of the brain ; it is likely to be greatest 
in the occipital region and when due to emotional excite- 
ment ; it cannot be accounted for fairly as the effect merely 
of increased circulation. But (4) it has been demonstrated 
by actual measurement that the prolonged and severe ex- 
citement of the nerve-cells produces a decrease in their 
volume and a change in the character of their substance. 
Rest from use is followed by a resumption of the normal 
size and character of the nerve-cells. And although such 
ocular demonstration applies only to the spinal nerve- 
cells of some of the lower animals, there is every reason 
to believe that the principle demonstrated applies to all 
nerve-cells : we might almost say, a fortiori to the cells of 
the human brain. 

Certain experimental researches on the temperature of the head 
{Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1878) showed that active work 
of the brain caused a variation of temperature of never more than 
2V Cent. ; and that this rise was different in different areas, but great- 
est in the occipital protuberance and when due to emotional disturb- 
ance (here compare what has already been said, p. 334 f.). More recent 
researches led another experimenter (Tanzi) to these conclusions : 
(1) In deep narcosis, or states of great fear and pain, no change of 
temperature takes place in the brain ; partial paralysis of the brain is 
shown by this condition. (2) The thermal variation due to excite- 
ment occurs over the entire area of the brain. (3) The phenomena 
are not a simple rise, but an alternate rising and falling; and the 
extremes sometimes amount to more than a degree Fahr. (4) The 
changes are due to a diffused " emotional condition." 

Dr. Hodge succeeded in reducing the volume of the nucleus of the 



RELATIONS OF BRAIN AND MIND 413 

nerve-cells of the spinal ganglia of frogs and cats almost fifty per cent, 
by five hours of stimulation. He also found that, in the evening, the 
fatigued cells of animals which have been active all day (such as 
English sparrows, pigeons, honey-bees) have greatly shrunken and 
changed in their apparent molecular constitution. 

The bearing of such discoveries on the hygiene of the human 
nervous system — food, sleep, abstinence from frequently recurring 
and intense emotions, etc. — is so obvious as to need only a mention. 

Significance of Size and Complexity of Brain. — A great 
amount of pains has been taken to establish generaliza- 
tions regarding the size and growth of the human brain, 
and the amount and stages of intellectual development. 
This labor has not been altogether fruitless, but it cannot 
be said as yet to have attained its end. If we compare 
the weight of man's brain with that of the brains of the 
lower animals, the results are confusing. The absolute 
weight of the human brain (in the normal adult, from 
somewhat more than 1200 grammes to somewhat less than 
1400 grammes) is greater than the weight of the brain of 
any of the lower animals, except the elephant and the 
whale. If the fairer standard of weight of brain relative 
to body-weight be adopted, and a scale prepared to include 
many widely separated species, the result is still disap- 
pointing. Man stands well in the scale. But the relative 
weight of the brain is not greatly different in the dolphin, 
the baboon, and man. And in such a scale the elephant 
stands lower than the salamander or the sheep. 

If we compare the different races as respects brain-weight we have 
the following result : average in grammes of European males, 1340 ; 
Oceanic, 1293; American, 1282; Asiatic, 1278; African, 1268; Aus- 
tralian, 1190. Suppose it be admitted that the two extremes of brain 
size, as here given, measure fairly well the extremes of intelligence ; 
as Professor Donaldson has said, we should not be satisfied to arrange 
the intelligence of the intermediate groups by the same scale. Besides, 
the average weight of the adult female European is to that of the 
adult male European about as 1220 to 1340 or 1350; and a table 
which compared the two sexes would put the European female on about 



414 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

the same level with the Australian male, " thereby suggesting that 
the inference from brain-weight to intelligence is not a happy one." 

From comparisons of gross size and weight two conclu- 
sions, however, may be drawn and defended by the facts : 
(1) When the brain-weight of the adult falls below a certain 
rather indefinite limit, — 1000 to 1100 grammes in the male, 
and 900 to 1000 grammes in the female, — this deficiency 
is significant of a deficiency in mind and in capacity for 
mental development. (2) The fact that the brain of the 
male is absolutely larger than the brain of the female, in 
spite of all differences of race and at all the different 
stages of growth, is significant of some corresponding dif- 
ference in, at least, the more general characteristics of 
psychical life and development. The problem of sexual 
difference is, however, a very complex one. And since 
the difference in weight of the brain is quite balanced by 
the difference in gross weight of the entire body, it seems 
to be suggested that psychical differences of sex are de- 
pendent upon differences in the entire bodily development 
rather than upon the single difference in absolute brain- 
weight. 

The title of man to preeminence over all the lower animals, as 
regards his brain development, is clear when we consider not merely 
gross weight and size, but rather the characteristic forms of develop- 
ment. In the number of its elements, in the richness and complexity 
of its convolutions, in the relative amount of matter belonging to the 
hemispheres and especially to their frontal portions, the human brain 
much surpasses that of any of the species of lower animals. When, 
however, we come to compare the two sexes, the different human 
races, different individuals and classes of the same race, we soon dis- 
cover the limitations of our knowledge. Marked deficiencies in these 
particulars do, indeed, indicate a limited psychical capacity and 
development. Excesses, or even a not excessive rise above the normal 
average, in cerebral complexity of structure and development, cannot 
be definitely connected with superior intellectual capacity. We are not 
able as yet to carry out comparisons of this sort successfully, on the 
basis of secure generalizations; and perhaps we never shall be able. 



RELATIONS OF BRAIN AND MIND 415 

Growth and "Education" of the Brain. — The growth of 
the brain is undoubtedly connected in a most important 
way with the mental development. Certain facts are suc- 
cinctly stated in the following quotation from Professor 
Donaldson : " At birth the weight of the encephalon is 
nearly alike in the sexes, and in both growth during the 
first year, and indeed during the first four years, is rapid. 
By the seventh year the encephalon has reached approxi- 
mately its full weight, the subsequent increase being com- 
paratively small. There is no other peculiarity in the 
growth process of either sex, unless later observations 
should show that the approximation of the curves at four- 
teen years is really significant. . . . Should this curve 
be extended to ninety years, there would be found nearly 
the same weight of the brain persisting up to the onset of 
old age (about fifty years), when there appears a loss in 
weight, which becomes rapidly more evident, so that the 
smaller brain weight of the aged must represent a per- 
centage of loss in some instances quite large." 

Certain conclusions of great apparent interest to psy- 
chology are suggested from the history of the growth of 
the normal brain. In its structure the cerebral devel- 
opment is all made ready for use before it comes into 
contact, through the organs of sense, with the stimuli 
provided by external nature. The nerve-elements of the 
cerebrum are formed before the child is born ; although 
they are not by any means all developed to maturity. 
After birth, therefore, the growth of the brain consists in 
the enlargement and maturing of its elements ; and the 
education of the brain consists in the establishment of 
habitual forms of reaction to excitement, and of " dynam- 
ical associations" or combinations in functioning, on the 
part of these elements. 

Turning attention now for a moment to the meaning of 
all this as affecting the modifications of the stream of 



416 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

consciousness, the following conclusion seems suggested : 
The functional development of the brain depends upon 
the character of the excitements to which it is subject, and 
upon the constitutional and acquired character of its asso- 
ciated reactions; these latter are, hoivever, in a measure 
dependent upon the character of the co?iscious states and of 
mental development ; therefore what ive call the mind deter- 
mines in a measure the characteristic functional develop- 
ment of the central nervous mechanism. In more popular 
language we may say that, within certain limits, we deter- 
mine the growth and education of our own brains. 

Localization of Cerebral Function. — For a considerable 
time before the proofs of modern science began to accu- 
mulate it was suspected by many observers that all the 
areas of the brain were not equally concerned in, or 
related to, the different characteristic forms of mental 
processes. The extremes of the older school of phrenolo- 
gists (Gall, Spurzheim, etc.) had brought about such a 
reaction, however, that at the middle of the present cen- 
tury the greatest physiologists of the world rejected the 
theory of cerebral localization. They believed that the 
hemispheres of the brain function as a unity and with an 
indifference as to the value of their different areas. It 
was not until 1870 that the theory of cerebral localization 
was placed upon a firm basis of experiment and of observed 
fact. E. Hitzig had noticed that certain movements of the 
eyes and of other muscles followed the application of the 
electrical current to the head of his patients ; and in com- 
pany with G. Fritsch he began to experiment by stimu- 
lating minute areas of the cerebral cortex of dogs. From 
these beginnings the researches of physiologists have gone 
on until the elaborate modern doctrine has been established 
beyond reasonable doubt. 

By the " localization of cerebral function " Ave under- 
stand that the nerve-processes which take place in the 



RELATIONS OF BRAIN AND MIND 417 

different areas of the brain's hemispheres are specifically re- 
lated to different mental processes, or to different factors in 
the complex mental processes. The precise character of this 
relation the theory does not claim to establish ; with the 
metaphysics of the suggested problems it has little or noth- 
ing to do. In a word, work must, in all ordinary and normal 
cases, be done in certain more or less definitely (yet as a rule, 
if not always, somewhat vaguely and shiftingly) located 
portions of the brain, if the correlation between particular 
processes of the mind and the brain is to be maintained. 

Evidence for Cerebral Localization. — We cannot enter 
into the details of the evidence for the theory just an- 
nounced. It is enough to say that this evidence is, in the 
main, of three kinds : (1) experimentation, (2) anatomy 
and histology, including the study of the brain of the 
embryo and the infant, and (3) pathology. The first 
kind of evidence shows what particular- sensory-motor 
activities are occasioned by stimulating certain definite 
areas of the brain, and what activities are impaired or 
lost by extirpating the same areas — in the case of the 
lower animals. The second kind of evidence consists in 
tracing the connections between the different cerebral 
areas and the corresponding organs of sense, or amongst 
the cerebral areas themselves ; and so inferring their func- 
tions from the observed facts of nervous connections. 
The evidence from pathology is gathered by a careful 
study of selected cases where disease or injury of the 
different brain areas, in man, can be correlated with the 
impairment or loss of characteristic mental processes. 

It must not be imagined that the indications of all these 
forms of evidence are equally clear or always conclusive ; 
but little by little the knowledge of the true state of the 
case has been approximately won. Experiment suggests 
the problem ; histology, and especially pathology, afford 
the conclusive answer. 



418 



DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



Conclusions as to Cerebral Localization. — The accompany- 
ing diagrams (24 and 25) present to the eye the present 
standing of the most acceptable claims of modern science 
to indicate what parts of the brain's hemispheres are 
especially concerned in the different specific forms of 
psychical processes. These diagrams should not, however, 




Fig. 24, lateral, and Fig. 25, median, view of the human brain. S, fissure of Sylvius ; R, 
of Rolando ; T lt first temporal ; Po, parietooccipital ; Ip, interparietal ; Cm, calloso- 
marginal ; i<\, first frontal. 



be read off and interpreted without constantly bearing in 
mind the following considerations : (1) The different 
portions of the brain, and indeed the entire nervous sys- 
tem, perform their specific functions only when they are 
brought into the proper connections and are thus exer- 
cised in the performance of those functions. (2) These 
so-called "centres" or "areas" cannot be regarded as 
definite and strictly limited localities. They overlap and 
interpenetrate ; they widen under the influence of height- 
ened energy ; they vary in the case of the individual man ; 



RELATIONS OF BRAIN AND MIND 



419 



they do not act in isolation. (3) Within certain limits 
the principle of "substitution" applies. If any one of 
these " centres " becomes impaired, the most nearly con- 
tiguous parts of the brain, or the corresponding parts of 
the opposite hemisphere, or the parts most closely allied 
physiologically, may "help out" the impaired member 
of the cerebral organism. 




It should also be borne in mind that the evidence for all 
the "localizations" indicated by the diagrams is by no 
means equally conclusive. For the so-called " Motor " 
region the evidence is best established, even to a con- 
siderable detail of the regions for the upper and lower 
limbs. The general " Sensory " region for the trunk and 
limbs overlaps the motor, but on the whole lies somewhat 
further back. The so-called " Visual " region probably 
stands next in its claim to be established upon unim- 
peachable evidence ; although the motor activities involved 
in " Speech " may perhaps claim to stand upon equally 
good grounds. From this point onward the theory of 



420 DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

the localization of other cerebral functions can only claim 
a diminishing amount of convincing evidence ; until we 
come to the so-called " higher psychical " functions, which 
seem largely, at present, assigned to the frontal regions 
for lack of any other work which can be given these 
regions to do. 

Very recently (1S94— 96) Professor Flechsig has advanced claims 
looking toward what he is pleased to call "the localization of the 
spiritual processes," and which he proposes to extend and defend 
further by subsequent publications of the evidence and of the results 
of his research. This investigator would divide the entire hemi- 
spheres of the brain into two great divisions. All the centres that 
have to do with the various forms of sense and with the correlated 
motion of the organs of sense, he would group together under the 
term, the "sphere of bodily feeling." This "sphere" is the repre- 
sentative in the upper part of the brain of those areas in its lower 
parts which are concerned in the automatic and reflex, but not intel- 
ligent and " apperceptive " action of the same sensory-motor organism. 
Therefore, it is the essential organ of self-consciousness. The remain- 
ing two-thirds of the hemispheres of the brain are left to act as 
" association- and coagitation-centres." (By " coagitation " Flechsig 
means " thinking " as involving what the " Latin language propheti- 
cally" considered as a synthesis, or bringing together, of different 
elements.) 

On examining the nature of these claims, it appears that the 
view which relates the so-called " sphere of bodily feeling " to the 
consciousness of Self is tenable just in so far as this form of 
consciousness is dependent upon such feeling. But, certainly, that 
knowledge of Self which the thinking mind develops implies all 
possible activities of association and thinking. It, therefore, involves 
the entire central organism. And as to the localization of association 
and thinking in any special centres or groups of such centres, the 
evidence is as yet altogether too meagre, if even we could come to 
understand what "localization" of such general forms of mental 
activity actually means. 

The researches of modern science come to an end here. 
They give us, indeed, a greatly modified and almost 
sublimated conception of the human body. But this con- 
ception connects us on one side, so to speak, with the 



BODY AND MIND 421 

invisible entities and mighty but mysterious forces of 
the physical universe. In this universe the unity of the 
body is only formal and temporary. The science we are 
studying, however, shows how the ongoing and developing 
consciousness constructs from the materials of experience 
the conception of a spiritual Self. This conception psy-' 
chology finds penetrated with assumptions as to its own 
being and unity, and as to the reality of a world of things 
with which this Self stands related. These relations of 
the Self to' the world of things are all, so far as modern 
science now knows, through the body. The researches of 
modern psj^chology end, therefore, so far as this line of 
its researches is concerned, in the discovery and statement 
of a great and indefinite variety of relations betiveen the 
body and the mind. 

The science of psychology is, accordingly, a consistent 
dualism to the very last. The theory how two such 
courses of development — the one of a being which is 
known as the product of the physical universe and the 
other of a " stream of consciousness " that comes to know 
itself as a feeling, willing, and knowing Self — can stand 
related to each other in manifold ways, the psychologist, 
so long as he remains on the standpoint of his science, 
turns over to the philosopher. 

[For the more detailed study of the subject of this chapter, see 
Donaldson : The Growth of the Brain ; and the author's Elements of 
Physiological Psychology, or Outlines of Physiological Psychology, 
— together with the numerous treatises referred to in these works. 
The philosophical problems suggested are fully discussed in the 
author's book on the Philosophy of Mind, and in several chapters of 
the Philosophy of Knowledge.] 



INDEX 



Allen, Grant, on conditions of pleas- 
ure-pain, 100 f. 

Analysis, involved in perception, 
195 f . 

Appetites, nature of the, 158. 

Aristotle, on conation, 113; on asso- 
ciation, 146 ; and principle of reason- 
ing, 283. 

Assimilation, as intellectual, 258 f . 

Association, the principle of, 144 f. ; 
secondary laws of, 148 f ., 231 f . ; in 
memory as reproductive, 230 f. 

Attention, as faculty, 36; as primary, 
36 f., 46 f., 119 f., 256 f. ; physiolog- 
ical conditions of, 37 f., 119; "hy- 
pertrophy of," 37; relations of, to 
reaction, 38 f ., 119 f . ; strain of, 38 f . ; 
variations of, 39 f . ; distribution of, 
40 f., 43 ; relation of, to feeling, 42 f. ; 
and to willing, 43 f . ; and to sensa- 
tions and thoughts, 44 f. ; kinds 
of, 46 f. ; as origin of movements, 
119 f. 

Aubert (and Kammler) on pressure- 
sensations, 81 ; on lower limit of 
light-sensations, 82. 

Automatism, as basis of conation, 
114 f . ; and related to "feeling of 
effort," 119. 

fading of memory- 



Baillarger, 

image, 127. 
Bain, on neutral feelings, 98; and 

principle of relativity, 389. 
Baldwin, on right-handedness, 119 ; on 

"dynamo-genesis," 121. 
Balzac, on the emotions, 338; on will, 

359. 
Baxt, experiment of, with disks, 30. j 

423 



Beaunis, on influence of expectation, 
38; on muscular sensations, 71; on 
pleasure-pains, 103, 106. 

Belief in Reality, 325 f. 

Berkeley, his theory of vision, 214; on 
abstract ideas, 277. 

Binet, on distraction of attention, 40 f . ; 
"psychic-life of micro-organisms," 
44; on discrimination, 54 f . ; and 
nature of perception, 172 f . ; on 
"local signs," 181 f. 

Body, touch-perceptions of, 192 f . ; 
orienting of, 196 f . ; solidity of, 200 ; 
relation of, to mind, 312 f., 394 f., 
402 f . ; scientific conception of, 397 f . ; 
relations of, to nature, 399 f. 

Brain, nature of processes in, 91, 406 f., 
411 f. ; special relation to mind, 
406 f., 413 f . ; as a mechanism, 409 f. ; 
proofs of work in, 411 f. ; size of, 
413 f., 415 f. ; growth and education 
of, 415 f . ; localization of function 
in, 416 f., 418 f. 

Category, nature of a so-called, 292 f. 

Cattell, on "grasp" of consciousness, 
28, 143 ; on time necessary to distin- 
guish hues, 79. 

Causation, as a category, 292 f ., 303 f . ; 
elementary consciousness of, 304 f . ; 
Preyer on, 305 f . ; development of 
idea of, 306 f . 

Character, nature of, 372 f. 

Choice, nature of, 361 f . ; stages of, 
362 ; deliberation in, 362 f . ; decision 
by, 364 f. 

Classification, nature of, 267 f. 

Color, sensations of, 65 f., 78; funda- 
mental kinds of, 66 f. ; purity of, 67 ; 



424 



INDEX 



complementary, 67 f . ; theory of, 
07 ; blindness to, 75 ; influence of 
retina on, 76; "after-images" of, 
76 f . ; contrast of, 77 ; time-rate 
of sensations of, 79. 

"Color-blindness," diagram of, 68; 
phenomena of, 75. 

Comparison, as active intellection, 
259 f. 

Conation, nature of, 112 f. ; kinds 
of, 114 ; physiological conditions of, 

114 f . ; psychological expression of, 

115 f . ; and movements, 119 f . 
Conception, nature of, 261, 264 f., 

274 f . ; the logical, 275 f . ; relation 
to language, 289 f . 

Conscience, nature of, 349 f. 

Consciousness, meaning of, 20 f . ; 
states of, 21 f . ; "fields" of, 24 f., 
26 f. ; extent of, 27 f., 31 f . ; inten- 
sity of, 28 f., 31 f. ; time-rate of, 29 f., 
31 f . ; quality of, 31 ; fluctuations 
of, 32 f. ; "stream of," 34 f., 40 f., 
389 f., 393 f., 406 f. ; of resemblance, 
50, 258 f. ; of difference, 50, 51 f., 
258 f . ; as appetitive, 154 f. 

" Continuity," Principle of, 144, 386 f. ; 
application of, 144 f . 

Cudworth, on conation, 113. 

Deduction, nature of, 284 f. 

Desire, nature of, 155, 163 f., 357 ; con- 
flict of, 165 f.; satisfaction of, 166; 
kinds of, 166 f . ; relation of, to will- 
ing, 357. 

Differentiation, as intellectual, 258 f . 

Discrimination, implied in conscious 
states, 22 f ., 49 f ., 257 f . ; varies with 
attention, 45 f. ; as involved in in- 
tellection, 49 f., 54 f., 258 f. 

Donaldson, Dr., on development of 
brain, 413 f., 415. 

Dualism, tbe " Natural," 396, 420 f. 

Dynamogenesis, law of, 121 f., 132 f. 

Ebbinghaus, experiments on memory, 
39 f., 127, 143. 

"Effort," feeling of, 117 f . ; analysis 
of, 117 f . ; rival views about, 
118 f. 

Emotions, nature of, 328 f. ; distin- 
guished from sentiments, 332 f . ; spe- 
cific characteristics of, 333 f.; 



" bodily resonance " of, 334 f. ; con- 
flict of, 338 f. ; final purpose of, 
352 f. 

Empiricists, their treatment of selec- 
tive attention, 47 f . ; and of percep- 
tion, 184 f. 

End-organs, nature of, 60; of smell, 
62 f. ; of taste, 63. 

Everett, Prof. C. C, on imagination in 
science, 255. 

Experiment, in psychology, 12 f . 

Eye, structure of, 65 f ., 202 ; formation 
of image on, 202 f . ; accommodation 
of, 206 ; stereoscopic apparatus of, 
208 f. 

Faculties, doctrine of the mental, 16 f. ; 
divisions in the, 388 f. 

Fechner's Law, statement of, 85 f . ; 
diagram of, 85 ; as applied to pleas- 
ure-pain, 103. 

Feeling, nature of, 88 f., 97 f. ; as pri- 
mary, 89 ; theories of, 89 f . ; physi- 
ological conditions of, 91 1, 101 f . ; 
kinds of, 93, 328 f., 330; the sensu- 
ous, 93 f., 100; the musical, 94 f . ; 
of relation, 56, 95 f . ; time-rate, 96; 
as pleasure-paiio, 97 f., 100 f., 105 f. ; 
intensity of, 101 f ., 328 f . ; cardinal 
value of, 104 ; diffusion of, 109 ; as- 
sociation and, 109 f . ; of effort, 117 f . ; 
development of, 328 f . 

Fere, on sensitiveness of nervous mass, 
26; on law of "dynamogenesis," 
121 f . 

Flechsig, on cerebral localization, 
420 f . 

Fortlage, on consciousness, 25. 

Generalization, nature of, 267 f. 

Goethe, on self-knowledge, 311; and 
the significance of a name, 319. 

Goldscheider, on speed of temperature- 
sensations, 30; on sensations of 
motion, 177. 

Griffing, Dr., on "threshold of pain," 
102. 

Griiithuisen, on imagination in 
dreams, 249. 

Habit, principle of, in movements, 
122 ; and in all mental development, 
391 f. 



425 



Haller, on sensitiveness of nervous 

mass, 26. 
Hallucinations (see Illusions) . 
Hamilton, Sir Win., on consciousness, 

25 ; on conation, 113 f . 
Hearing, sensation-complexes of, 174 ; 

development of, 189 f. 
Helmholtz, on rhythm of attention, 39 ; 

his theory of color-sensations, 67 f . 
Herhart, his theory of feeling, 89 f. ; 

on association of ideas, 136 f. 
Hodge, Dr., on fatigue of nerve-cells, 

412 f. 
Hoffding, on sensuous feeling, 95, 107; 

on volition, 114 ; on the principle of 

association, 147 ; and on the will, 

355, 366. 
Holmgren, on visual sensations of mo- 
tion, 177, 203. 
Horwicz, on nature of sensation, 60. 
Hume, on laws of association, 146. 

Ideas, nature of the, 124 f. ; variable 
characteristics of, 130 f . ; intensity 
of, 130 f. ; life-likeness of, 133 f . ; 
objectivity of the, 134; "of a feel- 
ing," 134 f. ; spontaneity of, 137 f.; 
fusion of, 138 f . ; conflict of, 139 f . ; 
series of, 141 f. ; "freeing" of the, 
149 f . ; schematizing of, 150, 275 f . 

Ideation, the process of, 124 f., 135 f. ; 
physiological conditions of, 128 f . ; 
as spontaneous, 137 ; connection of 
ideas, in, 140 f. ; principle of, 144; 
plan in, 151 f . 

Illusions (and Hallucinations), in 
normal perception, 217 f. ; of taste, 
smell, and hearing, 219 f . ; of touch, 
220 f . ; of sight, 221 f . 

Images, the mental, nature of, 126 f . ; 
fading of, 126 f . ; revival of, 127 f . ; 
emotional disturbance of, 336 f. 

Imagination, nature of, 246 f. ; physi- 
ological conditions of, 247 f. ; as re- 
productive, 248 f . ; as creative, 251 f . ; 
the limits of, 251 f.; place of, in 
mental development, 252 f. ; kinds 
of, 253 f. ; in science, 254 f . ; in art, 
255, 346; in ethics, 256; education 
of, 256. 

Impulse, 155 f. ; inhibition of, 156; de- 
velopment of, 157; arising from 
emotion, 159; kinds of, 162 f. 



Imputability, fact of, 371 f. 

Induction, nature of, 284 f. 

Inference, the so-called "primary," 
256 f . ; involves comparison, 259 f. ; 
nature of, 260 f., 279 f. 

Instinct, nature of, 155, 159 f . ; signi- 
ficance of, 161 ; kinds of, 162 f . 

Intellect (see also Conception, Dis- 
crimination, Inference, and Reason- 
ing) , development of, 286 f . 

Intellection, so-called " Primary," 
47 f ., 256 f . ; physiological conditions 
of, 49 f. ; growth of, 52 f ., 272 f. ; 
varying amounts of, 53 f . ; relation 
to all faculty, 55 f. ; as judgment, 
259 f., 267 f. ; as thought, 272 f. 

Introspection, as method in psychol- 
ogy, 11 f. 

James, on unity of consciousness, 27 
on consciousness as selective, 37, 47 
on sensation and perception, 173 
on feeling of accommodation, 206 
and nature of reasoning, 281. 

Joints, sensation -complexes of, 72, 
175 f. ; perception by, 192 f., 198 f. 

Judd, Dr., on visual perception, 215. 

Judgment, nature of, 259 f. ; the " rudi- 
mentary," 262 f. ; development of, 
264 f . ; as identification, 265 f . ; re- 
sults in generalization, 267 ; and nam- 
ing, 268 ; forms of, 269 f., 278 f . ; as 
synthesis, 269 f., 274; the logical, 
277 f . 

Kant, on the tripartite division, 111 ; 

on conation, 113; on mathematical 

imagination, 247 f.; and principle of 

syllogism, 283. 
Knowledge, nature of, 308 f. ; kinds of, 

311 f. ; " bi-partition " of, 312 f. ; of 

Self, 313 f . 
Koenig, on color-sensations, 67. 
Krohn, Dr., on tactual impressions, 28. 

Langlois (and Richet), on coefficient 

of muscular sensibility, 81 f. 
Language, influence of, on memory, 

234 f., stores judgments, 268 f.; 

nature of, 287 ; origin of, 288 f . ; 

localization of, 417 f. 
Lehmann, on fading of memory-i: 

127. 



426 



INDEX 



Leibnitz, on principle of syllogism, 283. 
"Localization of Cerebral Function," 

nature of, 416 f. ; evidence for, 417 f., 

420. 
Lotze, on nature of feeling, 99, 101, 

104; on intensity of ideas, 131; and 

feeling of Self, 323. 
Lussana, on muscular sensibility, 71. 
Luys, M., on brain as forcing choice, 

366. 

Matsumoto, Mr., on perception of 
sounds, 191. 

Memory, nature of, 227 f . ; stages of, 
228; as retention, 229 f.; conditions 
of, 230 f. ; as reproduction, 232 f. ; as 
voluntary, 233 f . ; imagination and 
thought in, 234 f., 242; influence of 
"atmosphere" in, 237 f.; as recog- 
nition, 238 f . ; prodigies of, 240 f. ; 
verification of, 241 f. ; loss of, 243 f . ; 
education of, 244 f. 

Mind, as "subject" of states, 3 f., 
55 f., 256 f., 420 f . ; as a unity, 17 f., 
388 f., 393, 401 f. ; not merely asso- 
ciative, 55 f . ; development of, 275 f., 
384 f., 389; general principles of, 
377, 386 f ., 389 f ., 391 f., 392 f. ; sexual 
characteristics of, 382 f . ; relation of, 
to body, 394 f., 402 f., 420 f.; scien- 
tific conception of, 401 f . ; special re- 
lations to brain, 406 f., 411 f., 416 f. 

Mosso, on sensitiveness of nervous 
mass, 26. 

Movements, origin of, 119 f.; classes 
of, 120 f., 360; development of, 122 f., 
176 f. ; sensations of, 176 f.; the 
voluntary, 360 f . 

Miinsterberg, on preliminary atten- 
tion, 45 ; on quality of sensation, 
73 f. ; on " word-memory," 234 f. 

Muscles, sensations of the, 70 f., 175 f. 

" Nativism," doctrine of, 184 f. 
Number, conception of, 303. 

Paulhan, on psychic facts, 27. 

Payot, on sensitiveness of nervous 
mass, 26. 

Perception, fact of, 168; nature of, 
169 f., 171 f., 183 f. ; physiological 
conditions of, 171 ; sensation-factors 
of, 173 f. ; general view of, 181 f., 



186 f.; rival theories of, 184 f., 
214 f. ; development of, 188 f., 195 f. ; 
by touch, 191 f . ; of the body, 192 f . ; 
by sight, 200 f., 211 f . ; imagination 
in, 212 f . ; will in, 213 f . ; by combined 
touch and sight, 215 f . ; illusions and 
hallucinations in, 217 f. 

Pleasure-pain, as " tone " of feeling, 
97 f.; conditions of, 99 f. ; kinds of, 
104 f. ; value of, 105; as "natural," 
106 f . ; rhythm of, 107. 

Porter, on nature of self-consciousness, 
24. 

Pressure, sensations of, 69 f . ; organs 
of, 69; "pressure-spots," 70; lower 
limits of, 81. 

Preyer, on discrimination. 55; on 
movements of embryo, 119; and ori- 
gin of conception of causation, 
305 f. 

Psychologist, the, point of view of, 
2 f . ; assumptions of, 4 f., 395 f. 

Psychology, definition of, 1 f . ; as 
science, 6 f., 395 f . ; its explanations, 
8 f . ; problem of, 10 ; method of, 
10 f., 13 f.; divisions of, 15 f.; as 
related to other sciences, 18 f. 

Rabier, on nature of desire, 164. 

Reactions, speed of sensory-motor, 30, 
120 f. ; effect of attention on, 38, 
40 f. ; with discrimination, 49 f. 

Realism, the " natural," 396 f. 

Reasoning, nature of, 279 f . ; kinds of, 
282 f. ; principle of, 283; the mathe- 
matical, 284. 

Relativity, principle of, 389 f . 

Representation, faculty of, 124 f. 

Rhythm, of attention, 39 f. ; of pleas- 
ure-pains, 107 ; pleasures of, 107 f . 

Rousseau, his influence on psychology, 
111. 

Scripture, on fluctuations of conscious- 
ness, 32 f . ; on fundamental color- 
sensations, 66 f . ; on color-blindness, 
75; diagram of fading memory- 
image, 128. 

Seashore, Dr., on illusions in percep- 
tion, 218 f. 

Self, the, knowledge of, 310 f., 315 f., 
318 f . ; the sentient and bodily, 318 f . ; 
the spiritual, 321 f. ; the metaphysi- 



427 



cal, 325 f. ; types of the development 
of, 376 f . 

Self-consciousness, meaning of, 24 f., 
314 f . ; physical conditions of, 25 f . ; 
the elementary, 33 f., 323; develop- 
ment of, 315 f . ; stages of, 317 f . ; as 
feeling, 323 f . 

Sensation, nature of, 59 f., 173 ; physi- 
ological conditions of, 60 f. ; kinds 
of, 61 f. ; relation of quality and 
quantity of, 73 f . ; conditions of qual- 
ity of, 74, 75, 76 f., 77, 78; quantity 
of, 79 f. ; measurableness of, 80 f . ; 
maxima and minima of, 81 f . ; as dis- 
tinguished from perception, 173. 

Sensations, the, of smell, 62 f., 74; of 
taste, 63 f . ; of sound, 64 f., 74 f., 
77 f. ; of light and color, 65 f., 67 f., 
76, 78 ; of pressure, 69 f. ; of tem- 
perature, 70 f. ; the muscular, 70 f., 
175 f. ; of the joints, 72, 175 f . ; the 
organic, 72 f . ; complexes of, 173 f . ; 
of motion, 176 f . ; of position, 177 f. ; 
as "local signs," 179f.; so-called 
"spatial," 183 f. 

Senses, the education of, 86 f . ; per- 
ception by, 168 f . 

Sentiments, nature of the, 328 f ., 339 f . ; 
distinguished from emotions, 332 f., 
339 f. ; kinds of, 341 f., 346 f. ; the 
intellectual, 341 f . ; the sesthetical, 
344 f . ; the ethical, 348 f . ; of obliga- 
tion, 350 f. 

Sex, distinctive characters of, 382 f . 

Sight, sensation-complexes of, 174 f . ; 
perception by, 200 f . ; development 
of, 201 f., 204 f. ; binocular, 207 f. ; 
stereoscopic, 209 f . ; secondary helps 
to, 211 f . ; theories of, 214 f . 

Skin, sensation-complexes of, 175 f . 

Smell, sensations of, 62 f . ; stimuli of, 
63 ; lower limit of, 82 ; development 
of, 188 f . 

"Soul-blindness" (and "deafness"), 
nature of, 37 f., 49 f. 

Sounds, organ of, 64; as sensations, 
64 f. ; kinds of, 64 f . ; the musical, 
65, 77 f . ; lower limit of, 82. 

Space, as "category," 293 f., 296; con- 
ception of, as empty, 296 f . ; rela- 
tions of, 298 f. 

Spencer, Herbert, on limits of con- 
sciousness, 27 ; feeling of relation, 



56 ; on " chemistry of ideas," 136 f. ; 
on nature of perception, 173. 

Stout, on attention, 47. 

Stratton, on vision "without inver- 
sion," 215. 

Strieker, on imagination and motor 
consciousness, 248. 

Stumpf, on relation of interest and 
attention, 42. 

Sully, on attention, 46, 47 ; on quality 
and quantity of sensation, 73; on 
conation, 113 f . ; and nature of per- 
ception, 173, 186 ; on representation, 
236 f . ; and belief, 325. 

Taste, sensations of, 63 f., 82, 189; 
stimuli of, 63 f . ; lower limit of, 82 ; 
development of, 188 f . 

Tanzi, on cerebral temperature, 412. 

Temperament, nature of a, 378 f., 
412; physical basis of, 378, 381; 
kinds of, 380 f. 

Temperature, sensations, speed of, 30 ; 
arrangement of "heat-spots" and 
"cold-spots," 70; cerebral rise of, 
412 f. 

Thought, in perception, 272 f. ; as pro- 
ducing concepts, 274 f . ; as logical 
judgment, 277 f. ; as reasoning 
proper, 279 f. ; language, as "vehi- 
cle " of, 291 f. ; as voluntary, 360 f . 

Time, rate of mental processes, 29 f . ; 
quality of sensation depends on, 
78 fr; as a "category," 292 f., 299; 
elementary consciousness of, 299 f . ; 
development of conception of, 301 f. 

Touch, perception by, 191 f. 

Turnbull, on musical sounds, 74 f. 

Types of mental development, 376 f. 

Vision (see Sight). 

Volkmann, on theory of feeling, 89 f. ; 

and the significance of the name, 

319 f. 
Volition, distinguished from conation, 

112 f., 114 f., 356 f. ; nature of, 356; 

variables in, 356 f . ; as influence, 

358 f. 

Ward, on psychic facts, 31; on atten- 
tion, 47; on feeling, 89; on nature 
of ideas, 133 ; and principle of rela- 
tivity, 390. 



428 



Weber, on fading of memory-image, 
127; and "sense of locality," 178, 
199. 

Weber's Law, nature of, 82 f . ; validity 
of, 83 f . ; diagram of, 84. 

Will, nature of, 354 f., 393 f . ; as a 
development, 354 f., 393 f. ; as voli- 
tion, 356 f., 361; as choice, 361 f . ; 
in formation of plans, 367 f., 393; 
"freedom of," 369 f. ; as forming 
character, 372 f. ; education of, 372 f. 



Wundt, on influence of expectation, 
38; classification of tastes, 64; on 
neutral feeliugs, 98 f. ; his theory of 
cardinal value, 104; on sensations 
of accommodation, 206; doctrine of 
temperament, 381. 

Young, theory of color-sensation, 67 f . 

Ziehen, on law of pleasure-pain, 103; 
on intensity of ideas, 131. 



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ume will probably, for many years to come, be the standard work of reference on the 
subject." — Prof. William James in The Nation. 

" He writes at once as a scientist bent on gaining; the fullest and clearest insight into 
the phenomena of mind, and as a metaphysician deeply concerned with the sublime 
question of the nature of the spiritual substance. "—James Sully in The Academy. 

" Professor Ladd's noble book is in the interest of true science, of sound theology, of 
real religion. We commend it in the highest terms, both to physiologists and to psychol- 
ogists ; to the former for its fresh studies in their own field, and to the latter for its fresh 
proof that they have still a field to cultivate. The book, so far as we know, is the most 
elaborate and comprehensive attempt yet made in the English language to give all the 
data which are claimed to connect the nervous system with the phenomena of conscious- 
ness, in a way to lay the foundation for an explanation of mind in terms of matter. The 
book is fully illustrated, and well indexed."— TV. Y. Evangelist. 

OUTLINES OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

A Text=book of Mental Science for Academies and Colleges 
Crown 8vo. 505 pages, $2.00 

The volume is not an abridgment or revision of the larger book, 
Elements of Physiological Psychology, which is still to be preferred for 
mature students, but, like it, surveys the entire field, though with less de- 
tails and references that might embarrass beginners. Briefer discussions 
of the nervous mechanism, and of the nature of the mind as related to 
the body, will be found in the " Outlines " ; while the treatment of rela- 
tions existing between excited organs and mental phenomena offers much 
new material, especially on " Consciousness," " Memory," and " Will." 
The author aims to furnish a complete yet correct text-book for the brief 
study of mental phenomena, from the experimental and physiological 
point of view. Both pupil and teacher have been considered, that the 
book may be readily learned and successfully taught. 

" We regard it as even better than the larger work, as it is more judicious and mature, 
having the advantages of longer reflection upon the subject and larger experience in teach- 
ing it. For its purpose there is not a better text-book in the language." — The Nation. 

" He has discharged his task with great thoroughness, with a lightness of touch, and a 
clearness and precision of style that come only from perfect mastery of the matter in hand. 
The book fills, and fills solidly, a great gap in our psychological literature. "—J. G. 
Schurman, Cornell University. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



PSYCHOLOGY: DESCRIPTIVE AND EXPLANATORY 

A Treatise of the Phenomena, Laws and Development of Human Mental Life 

8vo. 676 pages. $4.50 

As indicated in the sub-title, this work has for its object the study of 
human mental life, and is perhaps better defined by the term introspective 
psychology than by any other in common use. It is a general treatise 
for those who wish to gain a thorough knowledge of the subject, not de- 
signed merely for use as a text-book, while at the same time the product 
of one who has taught a large number of pupils, and embodying much 
experience gained through the work of the class-room. The size and 
scope, the amount and kind of material, and the style of its presentation 
unite in making it a suitable book for mature students, as those usually 
are who begin the subject in colleges. It is therefore a college text-book, 
and is recommended without qualification for such use. 

" Professor Ladd has presented in this work a great body of facts on all the important 
points in psychology, and has subjected them to a keen and illuminating criticism. I know 
of no other work that gives so good a critical survey of the whole field as this." 

—Prof. B. P. Bowne, Boston University. 

" It is rich in material, admirably clear and well arranged, and a thoroughly satisfac- 
tory introductory book for the student in this rapidly developing field of study. I shall 
at once recommend its use by my classes." 

—Prof. J. W. Stearns, University of Wisconsin. 

"My impression of it is that it is Professor Ladd's best work, that it contains the 
maturest and most independent expression of his views on all the principal topics in 
psychology. It is a distinct honor to American scholarship to have produced it." 

—Prof. H. N. Gardner, Smith College. 



PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY 

121110. 226 pages. $1.00 net 

As its title indicates, this is a text-book for elementary students, and 
was written by this eminent author because no book in America had been 
found satisfactory for academies and high schools, and for a large class 
of general readers who might find some pleasure and perhaps more 
profit in reading a very brief and very simple treatise on psychology. 
The author's success in his undertaking may be measured by the fact 
that within eighteen months of its publication six editions were ex- 
hausted. The book will be used the coming year in more than sixty 
high schools and academies, as well as in many colleges and normal 
schools. 

CONTENTS: 

I. The Mind and Its Activities. VII. Hearing and Sight. 

II. Consciousness and Attention. VIII. Memory and Imagination. 

III. Sensations. IX. Thought and Language. 

IV. Feeling. X. Reasoning and Knowledge. 

V. Mental Images AnD Ideas. XI. Emotions, Sentiments and Desires. 

VI. Smell, Taste and Touch. XII. Will and Character. 

XIII. Temperament and Development. 



METAPHYSICAL PSYCHOLOGY 



PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 

An Essay in the Metaphysics of Psychology. 8vo. 412 pages. $3.00 

This is a speculative treatment of certain problems suggested, but 
not discussed, in the study of psychology, and therefore appropriately 
follows the author's earlier works on that subject. The subjects treated 
are : Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind, The Concept of Mind, 
The Reality of Mind, The Consciousness of Identity and the so-called 
Double Consciousness, The Unity of Mind, Mind and Body, Materialism 
and Spiritualism, Monism and Dualism, Origin and Permanence of Mind, 
Place of Man's Mind in Nature. 

JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE, London.—" We may say of this book that it 
is written in the author's best style. The destructive criticism is in places markedly 
effective, and the book ought to be widely read as one of the most able and suggestive 
contributions of recent years to the literature of the philosophy of mind." 

THE DIAL.—" Its raking attack upon over-hasty monism is particularly well timed. 
Although the border-land which divides Psychology from Metaphysics is partially sur- 
veyed in many philosophical and psychological works, Professor Ladd has for the first 
time brought the more important questions within the limits of a single volume." 



PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE 

8vo. 614 pages. $4.00 

This is the first adequate discussion of the subject by any American 
author, and naturally will attract special attention aside from the fact that 
it is the work of Dr. Ladd, whose name is so familiar to students of 
philosophy both in this country and abroad. The book appeals to the 
general reader by reason of the relation this subject bears to questions 
now so prominently before the philosophical and religious world, as well 
as through the broad sympathy of the author with different phases of 
thought. It will also find a place waiting for it as a text-book for 
advanced and postgraduate students in the study of logic and the laws 
of thought. Ministers, too, will get from it much material for which 
they find a constant use. 

THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW.— "It would ill become one to take leave of a work 

which must lay many under obligation without noting its broad basis in a knowledge 
carefully garnered from many sources during long years, its candor, its striking variety of 
content, and its suggestiveness." 

Copies of these books "will be stcpplied to teachers for examination or intro- 
duction at Special Net Rates, regarding which correspondence is solicited. 

. . 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

PUBLISHERS - = NEW YORK CITY 



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